Professional Chess Association - Definition and Overview

The Professional Chess Association was created 1993 by Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short for the marketing and organization of its chess world championship.

Kasparov and Short accused the FIDE of unprofessionalism and favoritism. Furthermore they refused to surrender 25 per cent of their prize moneys to FIDE. FIDE stripped the World Championship Title from Kasparov and denied Short the right to challenge Kasparov.

In October 1993, the duel between Kasparov and Short took place in the Savoy Theatre in London. Kasparov won clearly 12.5-7.5 and became PCA World Champion. Since FIDE ejected Kasparov and Short, Anatoli Karpov played Jan Timman for the FIDE World Championship Title, in which Karpov triumphed. For the first time in chess history there were two world champions, the FIDE world champion Karpov and the PCA world champion Kasparov.

In 1995, Kasparov defended his PCA World Championship title against the Indian GM Viswanathan Anand in the World Trade Center in a match starting September 11, 1995. Kasparov won the 20 game match 10.5 - 7.5. The PCA later folded, and when Kasparov lost his title to Vladimir Kramnik in 2000 it was under the auspices of Braingames.