15 October 2008

World Chess Championship Match History

The current Kramnik-Anand World Chess Championship match in Bonn is the forty-third match so designated (maybe—see 1910). From 1886 to 1993, new champions were crowned only after defeating the current champion in a match. There were two exceptions: Botvinnik won the WCC title after winning a five player quintuple round-robin (Alekhine had died), and Karpov won the WCC title in 1975 by default when Fischer and FIDE could not agree to terms.

The WCC title was split and in dispute 1993-2006.

I created this chart partly to answer a question of the frequency of a draw in game one as the players orient themselves to weeks or months of intense competition. There have been fifteen draws in the first game. Black has won twelve, and White sixteen. Although predicting a draw in the first game seems almost commonsense, it is far from the norm.

The winner of twenty-one matches has won the first game; seventeen match winners have started with a loss.

*indicates historical note below


Year

Contestants (winner in bold)

First player had White in game 1

Game 1

Result

Final Score



1886*

Zukertort

Steinitz

0-1

7.5-12.5



1889

Chigorin

Steinitz

1-0

6.5-10.5



1890

Steinitz

Gunsberg

½-½

10.5-8.5



1892

Chigorin

Steinitz

1-0

10.5-12.5



1894

Lasker

Steinitz

1-0

10-7



1896

Steinitz

Lasker

0-1

4.5-12.5



1907

Marshall

Lasker

0-1

3.5-11.5



1908

Lasker

Tarrasch

1-0

10.5-5.5



1909

Lasker

Janowsky

½-½

8.0-2.0



1910*

Schlechter

Lasker

½-½

5.0-5.0



1910

Lasker

Janowsky

1-0

9.5-1.5



1921*

Capablanca

Lasker

½-½

9.0-5.0



1927

Alekhine

Capablanca

1-0

18.5-15.5



1929

Alekhine

Bogoljubov

1-0

15.5-9.5



1934

Bogoljubov

Alekhine

½-½

10.5-15.5



1935

Alekhine

Euwe

1-0

15.5-14.5



1937

Euwe

Alekhine

1-0

9.5-15.5



1951

Botvinnik

Bronstein

½-½

12.0-12.0



1954

Smyslov

Botvinnik

0-1

12.0-12.0



1957

Botvinnik

Smyslov

0-1

9.5-12.5



1958

Smyslov

Botvinnik

0-1

10.5-12.5



1960

Tal

Botvinnik

1-0

12.5-8.5



1961

Botvinnik

Tal

1-0

13.0-8.0



1963

Petrosian

Botvinnik

0-1

12.5-9.5



1966

Spassky

Petrosian

½-½

11.5-12.5



1969

Spassky

Petrosian

0-1

12.5-10.5



1972

Spassky

Fischer

1-0

8.5-12.5



1978

Korchnoi

Karpov

½-½

15.5-16.5



1981

Korchnoi

Karpov

0-1

7.5-10.5



1984*

Karpov

Kasparov

½-½

25.0-23.0



1985

Kasparov

Karpov

1-0

13.0-11.0



1986

Karpov

Kasparov

½-½

11.5-12.5



1987

Karpov

Kasparov

½-½

12.0-12.0



1990

Karpov

Kasparov

½-½

11.5-12.5



1993*

Kasparov

Short

1-0

12.5-7.5



1993*

Timman

Karpov

0-1

8.5-12.5



1995

Anand

Kasparov

½-½

7.5-10.5



1996

Karpov

Kamsky

1-0

10.5-7.5



1998*

Karpov

Anand

1-0

5.0-3.0



2000

Kasparov

Kramnik

½-½

6.5-8.5



2004

Leko

Kramnik

0-1

7.0-7.0



2006*

Topalov

Kramnik

0-1

7.5-8.5



2008

Kramnik

Anand

½-½







Notes:

1886 After winning game one, Steinitz lost four straight in the first official World Chess Championship match. He lost only one more in the match. In 1889, only one game was drawn.

1910 There is doubt whether this match was a World Championship contest, and concerning the conditions needed for Schlechter to win. See Chess Notes 4144.

1921 Lasker achieved no wins in his loss of the title to Capablanca.

1984 Karpov was leading when the match was suspended. Kasparov had won the last two games.

1993 Kasparov and Short created the Professional Chessplayers Association and held their match outside of FIDE, which stripped Kasparov of his title and held the Timman-Karpov match. The World Championship title was split until the Kramnik-Topalov reunification match.

1998 Karpov-Anand was a six game match at standard time controls; then two rapid play-off games broke the 3.0-3.0 tie.

2006 Topalov-Kramnik played twelve standard time control games (Kramnik forfeited one); then four rapid games broke the 6.0-6.0 tie.

World Champions were selected through tournaments or knock-out matches in 1948, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2007. These differ in fundamental character from a two player match preceded by months of specific preparation for a known opponent.

Corrections

Corrections are welcome. In putting together this data I drew mostly upon three sources: Aleksandar Matanović, Chess is Chess CD (2000); Chess Base, Big Database 2003, updated with The Week in Chess 1-727, and Mark Weeks, The World Chess Championship website. None of these are proper research materials for serious research questions. Every bit of information needs verification.

4 comments:

  1. Only 1/3 matches started with a draw? Hmmm, i thought that percentage was much higher. How could i be so mistaken? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I noticed that between Karpov and Kasparov there were 4 draws out of 5 first games, and all their matches were close. Looks somehow similar to this match to me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, there were many KK draws. Kasparov found that trying to win against Karpov's Caro-Kann was like pushing a rock uphill. Yasser Seirawan's Five Crowns is an excellent book on their series of matches.

    ReplyDelete