01.02.2017

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov: "Chess revival"

The struggle between Garry Kasparov and FIDE President Florencio Campomanes culminated In 1993. As a result, the World Championship match between the Russian grandmaster and British Nigel Short was held under the auspices of the Professional Chess Association created by Kasparov.

The FIDE, objecting to such outcome, announced the stripping the Kasparov's title and held a match between Anatoly Karpov and Dutchman Jan Timman, in which the Russian excelled. Thus, there were two champions in two versions in the chess world.

Fast enough PCA lost sponsors and broke, but Kasparov was not going to re-join the Federation and continued to call himself a true Champion. The stalemate persisted for a long time. The match between Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, which was won by the young Russian chess player, was held in 2000. Since the PCA had ceased to exist, Kramnik was considered as the classic-version World Champion.
In 1995, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov -- who was already holding that position -- won the presidential elections. He immediately declared reforms and announced new concepts. In 1996, the Federation replaced a match for the champion title with a knockout tournament, in which the champion had to play on an equal basis with contenders.
In 2006, an agreement was reached to hold a unification match between Kramnik and FIDE Champion Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. Kramnik won and became the undisputed Champion.
2008 can rightly be considered a new starting point in the history of the game. The FIDE finally returned to the classic format of a match for the world championship. However, the organization had to reckon with the modern realities and, realizing that the 24 games were too much, the FIDE decided to reduce their number to 12.
The second alteration affected the system to determine the champion in the event of a draw after the set number of games. Formerly a draw was assessed in favour of the holder of the title, however, according to the new system, the winner was declared Champion after a tie-break. The typical fight between Kramnik and Anand took place in 2008. The winner was the Indian grandmaster.
The activities of the Ilyumzhinov as the President of FIDE were most fruitful in the following years. Having successfully united all players under the auspices of the federation, he began to purposefully promote the popularization of the game.
Owing to Ilyumzhinov, chess made a huge step forward on a global scale. It has become much more popular in the world than in the Soviet period. This can be seen, particularly, by results of the world championships among children over the past 10 years.
Look which countries are among the winners: Vietnam, Poland, India, United States, Greece, Turkey, China and many others. The FIDE joins 188 countries now. The Federation is kind of heavyweight, and chess has become a global sport owing to its mass character.