The FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 was held at the Almahary Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, from June 18 to July 13, 2004.
It was won by Rustam Kasimdzhanov, who beat Michael Adams in the final by a score of 4½–3½. He won about US$100,000 and the title of FIDE World Chess Champion.
The intention was that the tournament winner would play the world's top-ranked player at the time, Garry Kasparov, in a step towards the reunification of the World Chess Championship (which had been split into two separate titles since the World Chess Championship 1993); that match, however, never took place.
Reunification of the title
Pre-tournament Since 1993, when Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke away from chess governing body FIDE to play their world championship match under the auspices of the newly formed Professional Chess Association, there had been two chess world championships: one organised by FIDE (which used the knock-out format from 1998 to 2004) and one by a variety of other bodies (in the form of a long match between champion and challenger). The 2004 FIDE Championship was a part of what was, at the time, the most serious attempt yet to reunify the title, the Prague Agreement.
The plan under this 2002 agreement was that reigning FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov and FIDE World #1 Garry Kasparov would play a match, and that the Classical World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and winner of Dortmund 2002 (which turned out to be Péter Lékó) would play a match. The winners of these two matches would then play one another to produce a unified champion.
The match between Ponomariov and Kasparov fell through after FIDE refused to alter various things in the contract on Ponomariov's request, and he refused to sign. FIDE announced that instead the winner of the next FIDE Knockout Championship played against Kasparov in a match to be held not later than July 2005 (Kramnik and Lékó played their match in September–October 2004). Therefore, as well as the championship determining who was to be the next FIDE world champion, it would also determine who played Kasparov in what was effectively a semifinal match for the unified championship.
Post-tournament After Kasimdzhanov's victory, FIDE opened the bidding for the Kasimdzhanov-Kasparov match in August 2004, with bids to be received by September 15. This deadline was later extended to September 25. The organizer was to be chosen at the FIDE Presidential Board meeting in October 2004, but in fact, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced ahead of this time that the match had been awarded to the United Arab Emirates.
The plan did not come to fruition: the promised funding for the match never arrived, and plans to hold the match instead in Turkey also came to nothing. The whole question of how and when the Kasparov-Kasimdzhanov match would take place, or what would occur in its stead, was made irrelevant by Kasparov's announcement in March 2005 that he was retiring from serious chess.
Kasimdzhanov's victory earned him (and runner-up Michael Adams) an invitation to the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. Kasimdzhanov also gained automatic entry to the Candidates Tournament for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007.
The World Championship was eventually reunified in 2006, when classical champion Kramnik defeated the winner of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005, Veselin Topalov.
Controversies The event attracted many controversies.
Format The time controls were increased by 15 minutes compared to 2002 (90 minutes instead of 75 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 15 minutes until the end of the game and an incremental time of 30 seconds per move from move one.) But Zhang Zhong still said "the time limit is too fast for such a World Championship. We should call it a World Cup … a World Championship needs more classic time controls" and Nigel Short claimed that "If you took the top 100 players and survey their opinion you would probably find around 75% are against this time control".
Another criticism centered on the knockout format of the tournament. Although knockout matches had been used prior to the introduction of this tournament format, the brevity of these matches (Best of 2 elimination matches with a Best of 6 Championship Match, as opposed to the Best of 10 elimination matches and Best of 24 Championship Match seen in earlier cycles) led many to consider them to be of little value in determining the better player.
Location Perhaps the greatest criticism concerned the choice of Libya as venue. Claims of human rights abuses, and state-sponsored terrorism caused some consternation, but on a more practical level the country's history of not allowing entry to citizens of Israel has been of some concern, as three Israeli players (Boris Gelfand, Emil Sutovsky and Ilya Smirin) had either qualified for the championships or were high on the list of reserves (in the event of qualifiers choosing not to play). Additionally, a number of players had joint Israeli and American citizenship, and so were also expected to be disallowed entry.
With this in mind, FIDE originally announced that a parallel event in Malta would be held alongside the one in Tripoli to ensure that Israeli players could take part—Sutovsky sent his entry form back on the condition he played in Malta. This parallel event was cancelled, however, following a press release from the Libyan authorities that "The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya will pleasantly provide entry visas to all the qualified participants of this great Championship", which was taken by most (including FIDE) to mean that all players, including Israelis, would be welcome to take part. This appeared to be contradicted by a statement from Mohammed Qadhafi, chairman of the Libyan Olympic Committee (FIDE is affiliated with the IOC) and son of Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, that "We [the Libyans] did not and will not invite the Zionist enemy to this championship."
Several prominent figures criticized FIDE over this matter, with both Grandmaster Boris Gulko, a Jew with joint American and Israeli citizenship, and Beatriz Marinello, president of the United States Chess Federation writing open letters to FIDE criticizing their handling of the issue.
On May 13, the Anti-Defamation League wrote to FIDE, saying it was "troubling" that Libya should be hosting the championships, and urging FIDE to ensure that Israeli players were treated equally. The letter raised concerns over the Libyans not allowing the coaches and families of Israeli players into the country. Similar concerns were expressed in an Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) open letter of May 26 (the ACP also criticized several other aspects of the tournament's organization).
FIDE maintained throughout that Israeli players would have been issued with visas upon their arrival in Libya. This assurance was never put to the test, however: none of the qualified players took part in the championship and Boris Gulko, who has joint American and Israeli citizenship, withdrew from the event after initially indicating he would play (fellow Americans Alexander Shabalov and Alexander Onischuk also withdrew in sympathy with the concerns of Gulko and others). The only player in the final list of participants with an Israeli passport—Vadim Milov, representing Switzerland—never travelled to Libya: he complained that his official invitation to the event had arrived so late (on the day of the opening ceremony, one day before the first game) that it was physically impossible for him to get to Libya with it in time. Milov claims that this constituted a deliberate attempt by FIDE to exclude him. In response, FIDE said that the delay in sending Milov's invitation was due to Milov not sending them his passport details until a deadline had passed, and that even with this delay, Milov could still have arrived in Tripoli in time for his first game, which they had offered to postpone if necessary. Milov took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Tribunal Arbitral de Sport) in Lausanne which found that FIDE "undertook extraordinary efforts to make sure that Claimant [Milov] could participate in the WCC 2004 although such efforts could and should have been made earlier" and ultimately cleared FIDE of any ill-intentioned effort to exclude Milov, concluding "there is no ground for Claimant to claim damages from Respondent." Milov later responded to this decision in an open letter.
It was also reported that the Israeli chess federation was considering suing FIDE "for compensation for the damages incurred by our exclusion from this tournament".
Strength As a result of these and other factors, many of the players who were invited to take part in the tournament – including world number two Viswanathan Anand, and number six Peter Svidler – declined. In addition, Kasparov, Kramnik and Lékó did not take part owing to them being involved at a later stage of the reunification process. This led to a somewhat weaker lineup than previous championships, with only three of the world's top ten accepting the invitation to play, and only two of those actually turning up to the event. This weakness has itself been a cause of controversy, with claims that any tournament with so many top players missing should not be considered a World Championship at all.
List of participants On May 28, FIDE published a list of participants in the championship which was billed as "final". However, changes were made following the withdrawal of Gulko, Shabalov and Onischuk. A later "final" list included players of a range of skills from Veselin Topalov (rated 2737 and number five in the world on the FIDE Elo rating list) down to Tarik Abulhul (rated just 2076). It included only three of the world's top ten.
The following are the 128 players included in this list in order of seeding (from highest ranked to lowest), with the country they represent and their FIDE Elo rating on the April 2004 list:
2737 2732 2731 2719 2716 2712 2695 2692 2690 2689 2689 2681 2680 2679 2675 2672 2671 2670 2668 2667 2666 2665 2665 2659 2657 2656 2654 2652 2651 2649 2648 2648 2647 2645 2640 2639 2639 2637 2635 2634 2633 2633 2631 2631 2630 2629 2628 2627 2627 2626 2622 2621 2621 2616 2616 2616 2614 2612 2609 2608 2607 2605 2602 2602 2602 2601 2601 2600 2599 2599 2595 2593 2593 2592 2591 2587 2587 2586 2586 2583 2583 2582 2580 2580 2579 2573 2570 2564 2562 2559 2559 2558 2557 2557 2552 2550 2548 2548 2544 2544 2542 2542 2539 2537 2534 2533 2529 2523 2507 2507 2501 2490 2489 2484 2478 2457 2444 2443 2442 2442 2426 2395 2379 2374 2352 2277 2257 2076
Four players — Morozevich, Milov, Shulman and Hjartarson — did not appear for their first round matches and were defaulted.
Rounds 1–4 The tournament was played in the knock-out format which had become standard for FIDE championships in recent years. Rounds 1–5 consisted of two-game mini-matches; round six (the semi-finals) of four-game matches, and the final of a six-game match. These games were all played with a time control of 1 hour 30 minutes, plus an extra 15 minutes at move 40, and an increment of 30 seconds per move, starting with move one.
If the score at the end of a match was tied, tie-break games would be played. First, two games at a time control of 25 minutes for the whole game plus ten seconds increment per move. If the score was still tied, another two games would be played at a time control of five minutes with a ten-second increment per move. If the score was still tied after these four extra games, a single game of Armageddon Chess would be played where White had six minutes and Black had five, with no increment; White must win the game whereas Black only needed to draw.