Mikhail Chigorin Club

The Mikhail Chigorin Club is a symbolic club whose members have defeated one of the 16 official world chess champions during the time that champion held the title in any game with classic time controls in an official competition.  Chigorin (1850-1908) was the first chess player to beat a world chess champion, William Steinitz, in 1889.

So far, the club members are:

01. Mikhail Chigorin – defeated Steinitz, Havana 1889

02. Isidor Gunsberg – defeated Steinitz, New York 1990

03. Curt von Bardeleben – defeated Lasker, Hastings 1895

04. Siegbert Tarrasch - defeated Lasker, Hastings 1895

05. Joseph Blackburne – defeated Lasker, Hastings 1895

06. Harry Pillsbury – defeated Lasker, St. Petersburg 1895

07. Dawid Janowski – defeated Lasker, Nuremberg 1896

08. Rudolf Charousek – defeated Lasker, Nuremberg 1896

09. Frank Marshall – defeated Lasker, Paris 1900

10. Carl Schlechter – defeated Lasker, Cambridge Springs 1904

11. Akiba Rubinstein - defeated Lasker, St. Petersburg 1909

12. Fedor Dus-Chotimirsky - defeated Lasker, St. Petersburg 1909

13. Ossip Bernsetin - defeated Lasker, St. Petersburg 1910

14. Richard Reti – defeated Capablanca, New York 1924

15. Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky, defeated Capablanca, Moscow 1925

16. Boris Verlinsky – defeated Capablanca, Moscow 1925

17. Efim Bogoljubov – defeated Alekhine, Weissbaden 1929

18.Herman Mattison – defeated Alekhine, Prague 1931

19. Oscar Negeli – defeated Alekhine, Bern 1932

20. Arthur Dake – defeated Alekhine, Pasadena 1932

21. Savielly Tartakower - defeated Alekhine, Folkestone 1933

22. Petrus van Horn - defeated Euwe, Leiden 1937

23. Andor Lilienthal - defeated Euwe, Stockholm 1937

24. Torsten Gauffin– defeated Euwe, Stockholm 1937

25. Vladimir Petrov – defeated Alekhine, Margate 1938

26. Reubin Fine - defeated Alekhine, Amsterdam 1938

27. Bjorn Nielsen - defeated Alekhine, Munich 1941

28. Karel Opochensky - defeated Alekhine, Munich 1941

29. Klaus Junge - defeated Alekhine, Saltzburg 1942

30. Ludwig Rellstab - defeated Alekhine, Munich 1942

31. Antonio Medina – defeated Alekhine, Gijon 1945

32. Arturo Bonet - defeated Alekhine, Gijon 1945

33. Lopez Nunez – defeated Alekhine, Almeria 1945

34. Francisco Lupi – defeated Alekhine, Caceres 1945

35. Paul Keres – defeated Botvinnik, Moscow 1948

36. David Bronstein - defeated Botvinnik, Moscow 1951

37. Nikolay Kopilov - defeated Botvinnik, Moscow 1951

38. Efim Geller - defeated Botvinnik, Budapest 1952

39. Jozsef Szily - defeated Botvinnik, Budapest 1952

40. Mark Taimanov – defeated Botvinnik, Moscow 1952

41. Samuel Reshevsky - defeated Botvinnik, Moscow 1955

42. Miroslav Filip - defeated Smyslov, Vienna 1957

43. Andreas Duckstein – defeated Botvinnik, Munich 1958

44. Jonathan Penrose – defeated Tal, Leningrad 1960

45. Wolfgang Unzicker – defeated Botvinnik, Oberhausen 1961

46. Wolfgang Uhlmann – defeated Botvinnik, Varna 1962

47. Svetozar Gligoric – defeated Petrosian, Los Angeles 1963

48. Viktor Korchnoi – defeated Petrosian, Moscow 1963

49. Vladimir Liberzon – defeated Petrosian , Moscow 1964

50. Lajos Portisch – defeated Petrosian, Zagreb 1966

51. Bent Larsen – defeated Petrosian, Santa Monica 1966

52. Anatoly Kudriashov – defeated Petrosian, Moscow 1967

53. Borislav Ivkov – defeated Petrosian, Palma de Mallorca 1968

54. Ulf Anderssen – defeated Karpov , Milan 1975

55. Eugenio Torre – defeated Karpov, Manila 1976

56. Alexander Beliavsky – defeated Karpov, Leningrad 1977

57. Jan Timman – defeated Karpov, Bugojno 1978

58. Igor Ivanov – defeated Karpov, Moscow 1979

59. Anthony Miles – defeated Karpov, Skara 1980

60. Yuri Balashov – defeated Karpov, Rostov-on-Don 1980

61. Zoltan Ribli – defeated Karpov, Amsterdam 1980

62. Fridrik Olafsson – defeated Karpov, Buenos Aires 1980

63. Vlastimil Hort – defeated Karpov, Amsterdam 1981

64. Palermo Garcia – defeated Karpov, Mar del Plata 1982

65. Yasser Seirawan – defeated Karpov, London 1982

66. Lubomir Ljubojevic– defeated Karpov, Turin 1982

67. Zurab Azmaiparashvili – defeated Karpov, Moscow 1983

68. Wolfram Hartmann – defeated Karpov, Hannover 1983

69. Nigel Short – defeated Kasparov, Brussels 1986

70. Andrei Sokolov – defeated Kasparov, Reykjavik 1988

71. Artur Yusupov – defeated Kasparov, Barcelona 1989

72. Boris Gulko – defeated Kasparov, Linares 1990

73. Vasily Ivanchuk - defeated Kasparov, Linares 1991

74. Robert Heubner - defeated Kasparov,Dortmund 1992

75. Gata Kamsky - defeated Kasparov, Dortmund 1992

76. Joel Lautier - defeated Kasparov, Linares 1994

77. Aleksandr Shneider - defeated Kasparov, Lyon 1994

78. Veselin Topalov - defeated Kasparov, Moscow 1994

79. Jereon Piket - defeated Kasparov, Amsterdam 1995

80. Peter Svidler - defeated Kasparov, Tilburg 1997

81. Ivan Sokolov - defeated Kasparov, Wijk aan Zee 1999

82. Alexander Morozevich - defeated Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee, 2001

83. Ruslin Ponomarev -defeated Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2003

84. Alexei Shirov - defeated Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2003

85. Loek Van Wely - defeated Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2003

86. Vladimir Akopian - defeated Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2004

87. Michael Adams - defeated Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2004

88. Peter Leko - defeated Kramnik, Brissago 2004

89. Etienne Bacrot - defeated Kramnik, Dortmund 2005

90. Emil Sutovsky - defeated Kramnik, Dortmund 2005

91. Evgeny Bareev - defeated Kramnik, Moscow 2005

92. Teimour Radjabov - defeated Anand, Wijk aan Zee 2008

93. Levon Aronian - defeated Anand, Linares 2008

94. Hikaru Nakamura - defeated Anand, London 2011

95. Sergei Tiviakov - defeated Anand, Hamburg 2012

96. Boris Gelfand  - defeated Anand, Moscow 2012

97. Wang Hao - defeated Anand, Wijk aan Zee 2013

98. Fabiano Caruana - defeated Anand, Zurich 2013

99. Arkadij Naidijtsch – defeated Carlsen, Tromso 2014

100. Ivan Saric – defeated Carlsen, Tromso 2014

 

Chigorin was the most successful in defeated world champions.  He defeated Steinitz 14 times and Lasker once. 

 

Topalov has won 9 games from world champions – 2 from Kasparov, 4 from Kramnik, and 3 from Anand.

 

Kamsky is the youngest to beat a world champion, at age 17.

 

Liberzon has the quickest win – Petrosian resigned after 15 moves.

 

LiberzonPetrosian, Moscow 1964

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 Ne7 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 c5

7. Qg4 Ng6 8. h4 h5 9. Qg3 Qa5 10. Bd2 Nc6 11. Bd3 Nce7

12. dxc5 Qxc5 13. Nf3 Bd7 14. O-O Bb5 15. Be3 1-0