The Classical World Chess Championship 2000, known at the time as the Braingames World Chess Championships, was held from 8 October 2000 – 4 November 2000 in London, United Kingdom. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Vladimir Kramnik. The match was played in a best-of-16-games format, with Kramnik defeating the heavily favoured Kasparov. Kramnik won the match with two wins, 13 draws and no losses. To the supporters of the lineal world championship, Kramnik became the 14th world chess champion. Background Following the split in the world chess championship in 1993, there were two rival world titles: the official FIDE world title, and the PCA world title held by Garry Kasparov. The rationale behind Kasparov's title was that he had not been defeated in a match, but in fact had defeated the rightful challenger Nigel Short in 1993, so FIDE had no power to strip the title from him. The PCA then held Interzonal and Candidates matches from 19931995, and Kasparov successfully defended his PCA title in 1995 against Viswanathan Anand. The PCA folded in 1996. The initial contract with Intel had expired. Kasparov was looking for a new sponsor, but hadn't been able to find one. However, Kasparov still claimed he was the rightful world champion, so Kasparov looked for other ways to select his next challenger. Qualification Without the sponsorship of the PCA, Kasparov found he was unable to organise a series of qualifying matches to choose a challenger. Eventually in 1998, he announced that, based on their ratings and results, Anand and Vladimir Kramnik were clearly the next two best players in the world, and that they would play a match to decide who would challenge for Kasparov's title. Anand, however, as a participant in the FIDE world championship cycle, believed he was contractually obligated to not participate in a rival cycle and declined the offer. So instead a match was organised between Kramnik and Alexei Shirov, from 24 May to 5 June 1998 in Cazorla, Spain. Shirov was chosen because he was next in the PCA rating list, and because of his strong performance at the Linares 1998 supertournament. Despite being the underdog, Shirov won the match with two wins, seven draws and no losses. {| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+World Chess Championship Candidates Match (1998) |- ! !! Rating !! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5 !! 6 !! 7 !! 8 !! 9