Ruslan Ponomariov
- September 29, 2025
FIDE World Champion 2002 – 2004, tournament winner 2002
Highest Elo rating: 2764
Ranking: highest sixth in the world
Tournament career: winner of three super-tournaments:
FIDE World Championship 2002
Tal Memorial 2006
Dortmund Chess Meeting 2010
Chess Olympiads: gold individual medal on the second board
What earned him this:
Ruslan Ponomariov was the FIDE World Champion from 2002 to 2004 and among the players who became famous mainly by winning this title, he is one of the more successful overall. His victory at the FIDE World Championship 2002 was not such a shock, as he was already among the world’s top ten at that time. On his way to the title, he defeated players like Morozevich, Bareev, Svidler, and Ivanchuk.
His resume, besides this world champion title, is not bad at all; he can boast a gold medal from the Olympiad and victories in two other super-tournaments. He shared first place at the Tal Memorial with Leko and Aronian, and in Dortmund, he was first alone ahead of a star-studded lineup including former world champion Kramnik. After the unification of the world champion title, he qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2007 but lost in the first round.
Interestingly, on his twentieth birthday in 2003, he became the first elite chess player to lose a game by forfeit due to a phone ringing.
Why he isn’t higher:
As we mentioned earlier, the FIDE World Championship during the chess schism did not carry as much weight as the classical world championship. It is enough to get a player on this list, but if his resume is not top-notch in other respects, it is not enough for a high ranking. Ponomariov was a regular top 10 player and won a few strong tournaments, but he was not an exceptional player who dominated for a long period.
Best games:
Ruslan Ponomariov vs Vasyl Ivanchuk
FIDE World Championship 2002
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.