World Chess Championship History Board Screensaver

The idea of a world chess champion is older than the governing body. Wilhelm Steinitz won a match against Johannes Zukertort in 1886 that is recognised as the first world championship, though some commentators date his reign from his 1866 win over Adolf Anderssen. For decades afterwards the title passed by challenge match between the champion and a challenger.

That changed after the Second World War. Alexander Alekhine died in 1946 while still champion, and FIDE, the international chess federation, took over administration of the title, starting with a 1948 tournament won by Mikhail Botvinnik. FIDE then ran a three-year cycle of qualifiers leading to a title match, and in 1956 gave a defeated champion the right to a return match.

The lineage split in 1993, when Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke from FIDE and played their match under the Professional Chess Association. FIDE held its own championship, so there were rival champions until the titles were unified in 2006. That history is why the board says undisputed. Formats changed too: the 1984 Karpov–Kasparov match ran for more than five months and 48 games before it was terminated with no winner.