The FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 was a chess tournament held by FIDE to determine the World Chess Champion.
Background
At the time the World Chess Champion title was split.
In 1993, Nigel Short had qualified via FIDE's usual format to meet champion Garry Kasparov in a championship match. However, Kasparov and Short broke with FIDE and played under the auspices of a new organization which they had organized, the Professional Chess Association (PCA). Kasparov won this match to remain champion.
With its two top players withdrawn, FIDE awarded the two slots in its 1993 championship match to Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman, both of whom had been defeated in earlier qualification rounds by Short. Karpov won the match to became the FIDE World Champion.
The FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 was FIDE's first since the 1993 split. Meanwhile, the PCA held its Classical World Chess Championship 1995, in which Kasparov defeated Vishy Anand to retain his title.
Many of the same players competed in both organization's qualifying events. However, Kasparov and Short did not compete in the FIDE event.
Interzonal
FIDE held an Interzonal tournament at Biel in 1993, run as a 73 player, 13 round swiss system tournament. The top 10 players in the Interzonal qualified for the Candidates Tournament, where they were joined by 1993 FIDE World Champion Anatoly Karpov, 1993 FIDE runner-up Jan Timman, and 1993 Candidates semi-finalist Artur Yusupov. (The other 1993 semi-finalist was the excluded Nigel Short).
Championship
The round of 16 matches were held in Wijk aan Zee and the rounds of 8 and 4 matches were in Sanghi Nagar. If tied after the specified number of games (which happened only in the Kamsky-Anand match), rapid chess games were played as tie breaks.
The format was a departure from all previous world championships, in that the reigning champion (Karpov) was not seeded into the final match. Instead, he joined the competition at the semi-final stage.
Karpov defeated Kamsky in the final held in Elista, to retain his title of FIDE World Chess Champion.
Match results
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