★★★ INTRO ★★★

The 1998 FIDE chess champion was a match between 46 year old defending champion Anatoly Karpov of Russia and 28 year old challenger Viswanathan Anand of India.

★★★ QUALIFICATIONS ★★★

FIDE decided to completely change their WCC cycles. Instead of round robin or swiss system tournaments, they did a knockout match. There would be 7 rounds of 2-game matches, with tiebreaks if necessary. Karpov would be seeded right into the finals, where he would face the winner of the knockout tournament. Vladimir Kramnik did not like that advantage, and declined participation. Also, a player would not show up, so 97 players competed. 68 started in Round 1, 28 in Round 2 and Boris Gelfand in Round 3. (see Game Collection: 1997 - Groningen Candidates Tournament for games and more info)

Despite being only 2 game matches (allowing a lot of upsets), the highest seeded player, (excluding Kramnik) Anand, won, beating Predrag Nikolic in Round 2 2-0, Alexander Khalifman 3 1/2-2 1/2 (tiebreaks), Zoltan Almasi 2-0, Alexey Shirov 1 1/2-1/2, Gelfand by the same score and Michael Adams 5-4 on tiebreaks. This set the stage for a Karpov-Anand WCC match.

★★★ CONDITIONS ★★★

The match would take place in Switzerland. It was just for 6 games, with tiebreaks if needed. Game 1 was played on January 2nd, 1998, just days after the knockout tournament finished.

★★★ FINAL ★★★

On January 8th, 1998, Anand needed to win with white in Game 6 to force overtime. He got so, and the next day, 2 rapid games would be played, which Karpov won both to defend his title against 5-3.

★★★ MINI TABLE ★★★

Karpov 1 0 1/2 1 1/2 0 1 1 (4 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses) <62.5% score>

Anand 0 1 1/2 0 1/2 1 0 0 (2 wins, 2 draws and 4 losses) <37.5% score>

★★★ OTHER LINKS ★★★

See also: Karpov - Anand FIDE World Championship Match (1998)

Head to Head Record Prior to 1998: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches... (12 wins, 24 draws and 6 losses in favour of Anand)

Previous "FIDE" World Championship: Game Collection: 1996 FIDE World Chess Championship

Previous "Classical" World Championship: Game Collection: 1995 Classical World Chess Championship

Next "FIDE" World Championship: Game Collection: 1999 FIDE World Chess Championship

Next "Classical" World Championship: Game Collection: 2000 Classical World Chess Championship