CLEARANCE - Biel 1993

The only Interzonal in the year 1993, held at Biel was played as an Open, a swiss system with 73 participants playing 13 rounds (including three former or future World Champions: Smyslov, Kramnik, and Anand, as well as Ivanchuk, Salov, Shirov, Gelfand, Bareev, Khalifman, Seirawan, Speelman, Adams, Lautier, Piket or Judit Polgar, veterans Habner, Portisch, Korchnoi, youngsters Kamsky and Topalov), with ten players to advance to the Candidate's. It turned out to be the last ever Interzonal because of the FIDE schism that same year forced by Short and Kasparov (Garry later admitted, it was a misjudgement), splitting the chess world into two parallel chaotic Candidate Cycles for many years. Gelfand won the Interzonal of 1993 (swiss system) in Biel outright.