The FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 was held at the Almahary Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, from June 18 to July 13, 2004.
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 did, however, earn 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.
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).
[3] 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.
"[4] 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.
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[7]).
[11] 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".
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.
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: Four of these players — Morozevich, Milov, Shulman and Hjartarson — did not appear for their first round matches and were defaulted.
Apart from the defaults, he and Hamdouchi (who beat Motylev) were the only players to overcome a rating difference of more than 100 points to advance to round two.
In game one, Short (with white) had the advantage of rook for knight and pawn and was trying to squeeze a win out of it when, after around five hours of play, the position in the diagram arose.
Elsewhere, there were minor surprises when Krasenkow (59) followed up on his victory over Short to eliminate Zvjaginsev (27), 16-year-old Nakamura (83) – the youngest player remaining in the tournament – dispatched Lastin (51), and Grischuk (4) required the blitz tie-breakers to see off Filippov (36).
Top seeds Topalov (1) and Adams (3) advanced with little difficulty, winning their games with white and drawing with black.
Two surprise results occurred when Kharlov (73) and Domínguez continued their impressive runs by knocking out Nisipeanu (8) and Dreev (10), respectively, both recording their second win against a top 10 player in the tournament.
The match Radjabov-Dominguez ended 3½–3½ with Radjabov only advancing by virtue of drawing with black in the final Armageddon tie-breaker.
The first game of Kasimdzhanov-Topalov was a Queen's Gambit which was drawn after just fifteen moves in a position that has occurred in Grandmaster play several times before.
He followed a similar strategy in his match against Ivanchuk, possibly in the belief that if he could draw the standard time control games, he would have better chances in rapid and blitz.
Radjabov went for the Catalan Opening and Adams introduced a new idea in the position shown with 9...Nb6 10.Qe2 Na5 to hold on to his extra c-pawn (in the past, 9...Nxc3 10.bxc3 b5 had been played).
In response, Kasimdzhanov set up a hedgehog (with pawns on a6, b6, d6 and e6) and pushed his h-pawn to h3 to soften up Topalov's king side.
From a Sicilian Defence, Topalov gained control of the open c-file and invaded the White position, while Kasimdzhanov obtained some king-side pressure.
Topalov's position appeared preferable, but he was unable to turn his advantage into anything solid and, with both players becoming short of time, Kasimdzhanov won a pawn.
This left Radjabov needing a win in game four to take the match to tie-breaks, a difficult feat when playing black against a 2700+ rated player.
[13] Kasimdzhanov, on the other hand, was never expected to get this far (Sonas giving him just a 150–1 chance of winning), and although he had achieved some decent results in the past, he remained a largely unknown player.
Both players blundered on the last move of the time control (after which they each got an extra 15 minutes): in the position shown, Kasimdzhanov played 40.Kf2?
Adams' pieces ended up being much more active than their black counterparts, and he eventually planted a strong knight on b5 and a rook on the seventh rank.
Kasimdzhanov played the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez, as he had against Grischuk in round five, and they followed theory until Adams' novelty 12...f5.
Adams came under considerable pressure, but it seemed he may be able to hold White off until, in the diagrammed position, he apparently tired of passive defence, and lashed out with 30...Rxa5?