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
World Chess Championship 2008, which Anand won. Then Topalov was seeded directly into the Candidates final of the World Chess Championship 2010. He won the Candidates (against Gata Kamsky). Anand again won the championship match. The next championship, the World Chess Championship 2012, had short knock-out matches for the Candidates Tournament. This format was not popular with everyone, and world #1 Magnus Carlsen withdrew in protest. Boris Gelfand won the Candidates. Anand won the championship match again, in tie breaking rapid games, for his fourth consecutive world championship win. Since 2013, the Candidates have been an 8 player double round robin tournament, with