The World Champions

Basic Information:
Chess World Champions are players who have the won the match for the World Chess Championship. They are regarded as the best player on the planet. Throughout the years there have been many world champion matches and each match produced great champions. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen who has held the title since 2013 to the present.

List of Undisputed World Champions

 * 1) Wilhelm Steinitz (1886 - 1894)
 * 2) Emanuel Lasker (1894 - 1921)
 * 3) Jose Raúl Capablanca (1921 - 1927)
 * 4) Alexander Alekhine (1927 - 1935) and (1937 -1946)
 * 5) Max Euwe (1935 - 1937)
 * 6) Mikhail Botvinnik (1948 - 1957), (1958 - 1960) and (1961 - 1963)
 * 7) Vassily Smyslov (1957 - 1958)
 * 8) Mikhail Tal (1960 - 1961)
 * 9) Tigran Petrosian (1963 - 1969)
 * 10) Boris Spassky (1969 - 1972)
 * 11) Robert James Fischer (1972 - 1975)
 * 12) Anatoly Karpov (1975 - 1985)
 * 13) Garry Kasparov (1985 - 1993)
 * 14) Vladimir Kramnik (2006 - 2007)
 * 15) Viswanathan Anand (2007 - 2013)
 * 16) Magnus Carlsen (2013 - present)

PCA World Champions
The Professional Chess Association (PCA) was a rival organization to FIDE which is the current international chess organization that regulates rules and manages all tournaments. The PCA was created by the world champion at the time, Garry Kasparov and an English chess grandmaster; Nigel Short. Due to the controversial actions of Florence Campomanes, the FIDE president at the time, Kasparov and Short created the PCA as retaliation much to the surprise of the chess world. It was a unique time for the chess world because there were two world champions at once, the PCA world chess champion and the FIDE world chess champion. In response to the PCA, FIDE took away Kasparov's world chess champion status and created other matches to determine newer champions.

The two PCA world chess champions are: Garry Kasparov (1993 - 2000) and Vladimir Kramnik (2000 - 2006)

FIDE World Champions (1993 - 2006)
As mentioned FIDE began their own world chess championship cycles which created newer world champions. Such cycles included individual matches as well as a knockout format where hundreds of players from various countries around the globe have a shot at gaining the title. There was a great dispute whether who was the right world chess champions until the reunification happened as the PCA shortly collapsed after lack of funding.

List of FIDE World Champions:
 * 1) Anatoly Karpov (1993 - 1999)
 * 2) Alexander Khalifman (1999 - 2000)
 * 3) Viswanathan Anand (2000 - 2002)
 * 4) Ruslan Ponomariov (2002 - 2004)
 * 5) Rustam Kasimdzhanov (2004 - 2005)
 * 6) Veselin Topalov (2005 - 2006)