Ruslan Ponomariov

The 2001-2002 FIDE knockout world championship tournament took place in Moscow Russia. It was a 128 player knockout tournament conducted by pairing the contestants into "mini matches" (two games at normal time control) with one another. The winner would move on to the next round while the loser was eliminated. If the two game mini match was tied, the players would break the tie with two rapid-play games to determine a winner, followed by two games of blitz if necessary. If the match was still undecided, a single "Armegeddon" (sudden death) blitz game would take place between the participants, with White having an extra minute on the clock, and Black having draw odds. The winner of this seventh game would be the overall match winner; in the event of a draw the player with the black pieces would be allowed to advance. For the sixth round of the event, the amount of games played at normal time control in each minimatch were increased from two to four, and then from four to eight for the seventh and final round. The rules for quick-play tie-breaks remained unchanged throughout the event.¹

The final match took place from January 16-26 in Moscow, and was to be 8 games in length. The finalists were Vassily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov. The 18 year old Ukranian grandmaster Ponomariov prevailed, winning the FIDE title. Ponomariov had already shown enormous talent by winning the 1996 European Under-18 Championship at the age of just twelve, and the following year winning the World Under-18 Championship. In 1998, at the age of fourteen, he was awarded the grandmaster title making him the youngest ever player at that time to hold the title. He defeated Li Wenliang, S. Tiviakov, Ki. Georgiev, A.Morozevich, E. Bareev, P. Svidler, and V. Ivanchuk to become the youngest ever FIDE champion.