FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 The FIDE World Chess Championship 2002 was held in Moscow, Russia. The first six rounds were played between 27 November and 14 December 2001, and the final match started on 16 January and ended on 23 January 2002. The Ukrainian Grandmaster Ruslan Ponomariov, aged 18, won the championship and became the youngest FIDE World Champion. At the time of this championship, the World title was split. The Classical World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik, did not participate, as well as the previous Classical Champion and world's highest-rated player, Garry Kasparov. However, all other strongest players of the
Development of the World Chess Championship not claim the title himself. Subsequent world championship matches returned to the format of a match between the champion and a challenger. The World Chess Championship 2008 was a 12-game match between the current champion Viswanathan Anand and 2006 champion Vladimir Kramnik. Anand convincingly defended his title in 11 games with 6½–4½. The World Chess Championship 2010 took place in April and May 2010, where Anand defeated 2005 FIDE champion Veselin Topalov (who defeated Chess World Cup 2007 winner Gata Kamsky in a match in February 2009 to determine Anand's challenger) to defend the title for the second time. FIDE