Rustam Kasimdzhanov
- September 24, 2025
Rustam Kasimdzhanov
FIDE World Champion 2004 – 2005, winner of the 2004 tournament
Highest Elo rating: 2715
Ranking: highest 11th in the world
Tournament career: winner of one super-tournament:
FIDE World Championship 2004
Why he deserved it:
The Uzbek grandmaster Kasimdzhanov is a very similar case to Akopian from yesterday. This player also reached the very threshold of the world’s top ten but never managed to cross it. His highest rating is exactly in the same waters. And just like in Akopian’s case, the reason for his inclusion in this ranking is a single tournament where he timed his form perfectly – the FIDE World Championship played in a knockout format in 2004. What separates him from Akopian is the simple fact that he managed to win this tournament and thus become the FIDE World Champion. This also represents his only truly significant success on the international chess scene. It must be said that on his way to the title, he defeated heavyweights of the time or future, namely Vasyl Ivanchuk, Alexander Grischuk, Veselin Topalov, and in the final Michael Adams. His title and therefore his place in this ranking are well-deserved.
Why he isn’t higher:
Kasimdzhanov never made it into the top ten and the only major tournament he won is the FIDE World Championship 2004. While it is a great and deserved success, it also shows us that the format of these tournaments at the time was not ideal and some stars regularly skipped them, such as the classical World Champion Kramnik, who was of course loyal to the organization whose world champion title he held.
More than as a player, Rustam made his mark as a coach and second, working long-term with Anand, then briefly with Karjakin or Caruana. However, these things are not evaluated in this ranking.
Best games:
Rustam Kasimdzhanov vs Viswanathan Anand
FIDE World Championship 2005
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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.