Who won World Chess Championship against Veselin Topalov in 2010?

The World Chess Championship?

• Hello fellow yahooanswer answers, before I begin I wish to tell you that I understand that some people feel chess is a game for geeks, nerdy, or just plain stupid. I respect your opinoin, but ask you to give chess a second chance if you wish. This ancient game teaches many lessons and I am entirely glad that I aquired the skill to play. I am reletivly new, and understand there are many grandmasters in the world, some better than others. I also understand there is a tournament known as the world championship? Or something along those lines? I have a few quesitons I would like answered reguarding this event. Please, you do not need to answer all of these, just please let me know what you know. Also, if you would like to save time give me a link to a resource where i can find my answers. Thankyou! Best answer will be chosen. 1 more thing before we start; please do not give me false information. If you can only answer 1 question, so be it. Thankyou. 1. When in 2009/2010 is this tournament? What month is general enough. 2. Where is it being held? Spain? France? Germany? USA? Country is general enough. 3. Is it anual? Every other year? Every 5 years? 4. What type of tournament and how does it work? Round robin? 5. Is it going to be televised? If so where can I watch it? 6. How many grandmasters are involved and how do the decide/choose who takes part? 7. Is it more than 1 day? 2-3 days? A Week? 8. Is there a cash prize, or a trophy, medals? 9.Any other general information i would be curious to know? 10. Where did you find out this information? Is there a specific website I should visit for more indepth? thankyou and I know that is alot of questions. Every answer is appreciated. AS you can tell, I pretty much need an overview of this tourney.

• Answer:

  The World Chess Championship is historically decided in matches, not tournaments. The reigning champion plays a match against a challenger, and if the challenger wins he becomes the new World Champion. A match of sufficient length is the best and traditional way to determine the stronger of two players; tournaments are sometimes necessary when there is no sitting world champion, but they reward riskier (unsound) play against weaker opponents in the field, and they are also susceptible to cheating if players in the tournament are in collusion to provide advantage to one player over another. The current World Champion is Vishy Anand from India, and he will face challenger Veselin Topalov from Bulgaria in a match for the title in April of 1010. The details of these matches are agreed to in a contract between Champion and Challenger. There is a lot of confusion about the World Chess Championship, so some historical background is in order: * Chess matches have decided championships for hundreds of years, with the mantle passed from Champion to Challenger as it is with Boxing. * In 1862, the recognized Champion, Paul Morphy from America, retired without relinquishing his "unofficial" title in a match. There were strong tournaments to determine a likely successor, but these successes only provided the candidates: Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. These two played a match in 1886 and Steinitz was crowned the "official" champion. * Steinitz was defeated by Lasker, Lasker was defeated by Capablanca, Capablanca was defeated by Alekhine. * Alekhine died while still holding the title, which suddenly brought the world chess organization FIDE into the foreground. In 1948, FIDE organized a tournament to determine the new chess champion, and Botvinnik was crowned after winning the tournament. * FIDE continued to organize Championship matches between sitting Champion and Challenger (determined through a series of Candidates matches). * In 1975 the reigning champion, Bobby Fischer, forfeited his title over disputes with conditions for the match, and his Challenger, Karpov, was declared the 12th World Champion. * Kasparov defeated Karpov, but decided to take on a Challenger, Nigel Short, outside the auspices of FIDE (which many people considered a corrupt organization). Kasparov beat Short and continued to beat Challengers outside of FIDE. * FIDE in response started holding "Championship Tournaments" and call the winners of these championships the "World Champion." No one really took FIDE's long string of tin crowns seriously because Kasparov was still clearly the best player around, and was still nearly universally considered the World Champion. * In 2000, Kramnik defeated Kasparov. He defended his title in 2004 against Peter Leko. When Kasparov then retired in 2005, suddenly there was a show of support for the FIDE titles with Kramnik called the "Classical World Champion" and the current FIDE titleholder Topalov called the "FIDE World Champion." Part of the argument of the pro-FIDE-title crowd was that Kramnik shouldn't have been the rightful challenger to Kasparov, and that he had gone too long without defending his title. Historically, many "rightful" challengers had failed to raise the necessary purse or fulfill other obligations for a match, and four years was not an unreasonable span before defending the title. * In 2006, there was a unification match between Kramnik and Topalov, which Kramnik won. This match returned the real World Champion title to the auspices of FIDE. * In 2007 there was a "Championship Tournament" under FIDE which had already been scheduled and where Kramnik had agreed to put his title on the line (this agreement was even before the 2006 match). Anand won the tournament, so he was effectively the new World Champion, but to put the matter to rest for those of us who think the mantle is only rightfully passed in a match, Anand also won a match with Kramnik in 2008 (which was also part of the agreement before the 2006 match, which is why Kramnik agreed to put his title on the line in the tournament -- if he had won the match, the tournament would have been but an historical hiccup). A great resource on the World Championships is http://www.chessgames.com/wcc.html