Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand is an Indian chess grandmaster, a former five-time World Chess Champion and a record two-time Chess World Cup Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and he has the eighth-highest peak FIDE rating of all time. In 2022, he was elected the deputy president of FIDE.
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion.
The FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 was held at the Almahary Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, from June 18 to July 13, 2004.
Eero Einar Böök was a Finnish chess player and engineer.
Rosendo Carreon Balinas Jr. was a chess grandmaster from the Philippines. FIDE awarded him the International Master title in 1975 and the International Grandmaster title in 1976. He was Philippines' second chess grandmaster. Balinas was a lawyer by profession, as well as an award winning chess writer and journalist. He also unsuccessfully ran for representative of Rizal's 1st district in the 1994 special election.
The World Chess Championship 2006 was a match between Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik and FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. The title of World Chess Champion had been split for 13 years. This match, played between September 23 and October 13, 2006, in Elista, Kalmykia, Russia, was to reunite the two World Chess Champion titles and produce an undisputed World Champion.
The World Chess Championship 2008 was a best-of-twelve-games match between the incumbent World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand, and the previous World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik had been granted a match after not winning the World Chess Championship 2007 tournament.
The World Chess Championship 2010 match pitted the defending world champion, Viswanathan Anand, against challenger Veselin Topalov, for the title of World Chess Champion. The match took place in Sofia, Bulgaria from 24 April to 13 May 2010, with a prize fund of 2 million euros. Anand won the final game to win the match 6½–5½ and retain the title.
The World Chess Championship 2012 was a chess match between the defending World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Boris Gelfand of Israel, winner of the 2011 Candidates Tournament. After sixteen games, including four rapid games, Anand retained his title. The match, held under the auspices of the World Chess Federation FIDE, took place between 10 and 31 May 2012 in the Engineering Building of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. The prize fund was US$2.55 million.
Baadur Jobava is a Georgian chess grandmaster and three-time Georgian champion. He competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2004 and in the FIDE World Cup in 2005, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2017, where he reached round of 16 after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi, and in 2021. He also participated in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15, where he finished joint 4th out of 12 participants in the Tashkent Leg after beating Sergey Karjakin. He won the individual board performance gold medals in the Chess Olympiads of 2004 and 2016.
Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen is a Lithuanian politician and chess player who is currently the speaker of the Seimas. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2010, she was European women's champion in 2011, and is a two-time Lithuanian champion.
Igor Khenkin is a German chess player. He achieved the FIDE title of grandmaster in 1992, and his peak rating is 2670. Igor Khenkin has been one of the top 100 FIDE players for eight out of the past nine years. He participated in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2002, but was knocked out in the second round by Rustam Kasimdzhanov. In July 2006, he won the Andorra Open chess tournament with 7/9 points.
Milunka Lazarević was a Serbian chess player and journalist. For many years, she was the strongest female player of Yugoslavia and became a contender for the Women's World Chess Championship.
The World Chess Championship 2014 was a match between the world champion Magnus Carlsen and challenger Viswanathan Anand, to determine the World Chess Champion. It was held from 7 to 25 November 2014, under the auspices of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in Sochi, Russia.
The World Chess Championship 2013 was a match between reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen, to determine the World Chess Champion. It was held from 7 to 25 November 2013 in Chennai, India, under the auspices of FIDE.
The World Chess Championship 2016 was a chess match between the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger Sergey Karjakin to determine the World Chess Champion. Carlsen had been world champion since 2013, while Karjakin qualified as challenger by winning the 2016 Candidates Tournament. The best-of-12 match, organized by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon, was played in New York City between 10 and 30 November 2016.
The World Chess Championship 2018 was a match between the reigning world champion since 2013, Magnus Carlsen, and the challenger Fabiano Caruana to determine the World Chess Champion. The 12-game match, organised by FIDE and its commercial partner Agon, was played at The College in Holborn, London, between 9 and 28 November 2018. The games were broadcast on worldchess.com and by NRK.
The World Chess Championship 2021 was a chess match between the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen and the challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi to determine the World Chess Champion. It was held under the auspices of FIDE and played during Expo 2020 at Dubai Exhibition Centre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, between 24 November and 12 December 2021. It was originally scheduled for the latter half of 2020 but was postponed until 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, this is the first sporting event to be held at an international exposition since the 1904 Summer Olympics during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, United States.
The World Chess Championship 2023 was a chess match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren to determine the new World Chess Champion. The match took place in Astana, Kazakhstan, from 9 April to 30 April 2023, and was a best of 14 games, plus tiebreaks.
On 3 December 2021, in the sixth game of the World Chess Championship 2021, the defending world champion Magnus Carlsen defeated the challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi in 136 moves, which made it the longest game in the history of the World Chess Championship. The game was played in 7 hours and 45 minutes, finishing after midnight local time, to take Carlsen to a 3½–2½ lead in the best-of-14-game match.
