[3] The preliminary matches were played in Sarajevo (Timman-Hübner and Gelfand-Nikolić), Wijk aan Zee (Korchnoi-Sax and Yusupov-Dolmatov), Riga (Ivanchuk-Yudasin), London (Short-Speelman), and Madras (Anand-Dreev) in January and February 1991.

All four quarterfinals were played in Brussels in August 1991, both semifinals in Linares in April 1992, and the final in San Lorenzo del Escorial in January 1993.

Keene brought the event to London (FIDE had planned it for Manchester), and England was whipped up into something of a chess fever: Channel 4 broadcast some 81 programmes on the match, the BBC also had coverage, and Short appeared in television beer commercials.

As a result of the unauthorized PCA match, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, removed him and Short from their rating lists, and arranged an "official" match between Timman and Karpov, whom Short had beaten in the Candidates final and semifinal respectively.

Karpov won the best-of-24 match and thus regained the FIDE championship title that he had previously held from 1975 to 1985 before losing it to Kasparov.