The FIDE World Chess Championships from 1998 till 2004 followed a similar knockout format, radically different from previous World Chess Championship events. Previous events had had long qualifying cycles, spread over more than a year, culminating in a long match (best of 20 or 24 games) between the incumbent champion and a challenger. From 1998 to 2004, however, FIDE organised its World Championship as a single event over about a month, with many players playing short knockout matches, rather in the style of a tennis tournament such as Wimbledon.
Background
From 1948 to 1993, the world chess championship had been administered by FIDE, the international chess federation. In 1993, the World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov split from FIDE and formed a rival organisation, the Professional Chess Association. FIDE stripped Kasparov of his title, meaning there were now two rival championships: the FIDE title, held by Anatoly Karpov, and the PCA title, held by Kasparov. Karpov and Kasparov had successfully defended their titles at the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 and PCA World Chess Championship 1995 respectively.
From 1948 until 1996, World Chess Championships had followed a similar pattern: a series of qualifying tournaments and matches were held over more than a year, culminating in the Candidates Tournament. The winner of the Candidates tournament was the official challenger for the world title and would play the incumbent champion in a match for the world championship. (The 1996 cycle was an exception. The incumbent world champion participated in the Candidates tournament as a seeded semi-finalist.)
In 1997, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov proposed a completely new structure: a knockout tournament, consisting of two game matches (slightly longer in the final rounds), with match tie-breakers using rapid chess and blitz chess if necessary. This format had been done before in tournaments, but never at the world championship level.
Controversies
The advantages of the new format were: It avoided a long cycle and was all over in a month or so. This is could all be done in the one venue, it would not have the scheduling problems which had beset some previous world championship cycles. Each round could be played in 3 days (one day for each normal time control game, and one for the tie breaks). More players (up to 128) could be included. There were no special privileges for the incumbent champion or seeded players (although some were preserved in the earlier championships, these were completely eliminated later on).
Opponents pointed out the disadvantages of the format: Short matches (only two games in the earlier rounds) left too much to chance - the stronger player could blunder a game, and it would be difficult to recover from a bad start. (Many world championship and Candidates matches had been won by the player who recovered from an early loss). The rapid playoffs were also seen to be left too much to chance: strength in rapid chess is not the same as strength in chess with normal time controls. These first two considerations, taken together, meant there was a very high chance that the best player would not win, or even that a complete outsider might win, opponents argued. Some people felt that the tradition of the champion being seeded into the final should be preserved so that a new champion can only be champion by defeating the old champion.
In declining to participate, Garry Kasparov wrote, "In Chess, the tradition of playing for the official WORLD TITLE is 111 years old and recognises the age-old tradition of a match between the HOLDER of the title and the CHALLENGER. Tradition dictates that this challenge is made in a serious manner with a full series of matches. The format being suggested flies directly in the face of tradition and unfortunately trivialises the World Title."
Despite winning the first event, Anatoly Karpov expressed his unhappiness with the use of rapid tiebreaks, comparing it to using a 100 metre race as a tiebreak for a marathon.