List of World Chess Champions
Wikimedia list article / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
World Chess Champions are players who have won a match or tournament for the World Championship at chess. Both men and women can become champion, but no woman has ever been a challenger for the title. There is, however, a separate championship for women. There are also separate championships for specific age groups.
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/Bobby_Fischer_1960_in_Leipzig.jpg/320px-Bobby_Fischer_1960_in_Leipzig.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Viswanathan_Anand_08_14_2005.jpg/640px-Viswanathan_Anand_08_14_2005.jpg)
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/MagnusCarlsen17f.jpg/640px-MagnusCarlsen17f.jpg)
Before 1886, there was no official championship held, but some players were thought to be pre-eminent. From 1948 on, the World Chess Federation FIDE held the championships. Between 1993 and 2006 there were two world champion titles, the FIDE one and the classical one.
The 2013 World Championship match took place between Anand and Magnus Carlsen (challenger) in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, where Anand grew up. Usually, world champions had been played on neutral ground. Fischer played Spassky in Iceland; Alekhine played Capablanca in Buenos Aires. The Soviets always played in Moscow. However, sponsorship is needed for these matches, and the decision to accept the Chennai bid was taken by FIDE. The Challenger was victorious winning 3 games and achieving the necessary 6.5 points to win the title at the end of game 10.
Ding Liren (since 2023 and from China) is the current World Chess Champion.