Kasparov and Karpov remained the top two players in the world, positions that they had held since July 1982. Over the year, Dutch player Jan Timman and Alexander Beliavsky of the USSR moved up the list, whilst Andrei Sokolov from the USSR and Ljubomir Ljubojević of Yugoslavia moved down.
January 1988 FIDE rating list. Top 11 players
The following major chess tournaments took place in 1988:
Grandmasters Association World Cup
The Grandmasters Association held six World Cup tournaments over 1988 and 1989, with some of the world's best players invited. The first three of these tournaments were held in 1988.
1 April – 22 April: The first tournament was held in Brussels and won by Karpov with 11/16, ahead of Valery Salov with 10.
14 June – 3 July: The second tournament was held in Belfort, France and won by Kasparov with 11½/15, ahead of Karpov with 10½.
3 October – 24 October: The third tournament was held in Reykjavík and was again won by Kasparov, with 11/17. Beliavsky was second, with 10½/15.
The 28th Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki, Greece was held between 12 November and 30 November. It was won by the USSR, ahead of England in second and the Netherlands in third.
The gold medal on the first board was won by Kasparov of USSR with 8½/10. Lajos Portisch of Hungary was second, also scoring 8½, but from 11 games.
The Women's Chess Olympiad was held alongside the open tournament. The winners were Hungary, ahead of the USSR and Yugoslavia.
23 February – 8 March: The Linares tournament was won by Timman with 8½/11, ahead of Beliavsky with 7.
6 September – 28 September: The 12th Tilburg tournament was won by Karpov with 10½/14, ahead of Short with 8½.
December 1988 – January 1989: The Reggio Emilia tournament was won by Mikhail Gurevich with 6½/9, ahead of Kiril Georgiev and Ulf Andersson Ivanchuk with 5½.
The Wijk aan Zee tournament was won by Karpov with 9/13, ahead of Anderssen with 8½.
Grandmaster
In 1989, FIDE awarded the Grandmaster title to the following 20 players:
Viswanathan Anand (b. 1969) India
Zurab Azmaiparashvili (b. 1960) Georgia
Emir Dizdarevic (b. 1958) Yugoslavia
Yury Dokhoian (b. 1964) Soviet Union
Boris Gelfand (b. 1968) Soviet Union
Krum Georgiev (b. 1958) Bulgaria
Jörg Hickl (b. 1965) Germany
Julian Hodgson (b. 1963) England
Miguel Illescas (b. 1963) Spain
Gregory Kaidanov (b. 1959) Ukraine/ United States
Stefan Kindermann (b. 1959) Germany
Josef Klinger (b. 1967) Austria
Bogdan Lalić (b. 1964) Croatia/ England
Valentin Lukov (b. 1955) Bulgaria
Gilberto Milos (b. 1963) Brazil
Michael Rohde (b. 1959) United States
Harry Schussler (b. 1957) Sweden
Elizbar Ubilava (b. 1950) Georgia/ Spain
Reynaldo Vera (b. 1961) Cuba
Michael Wilder (b. 1962) United States
In addition George Koltanowski (b. 1903) was awarded an honorary Grandmaster title in 1988.
The following chess grandmasters were born in 1988:
9 January Viktor Láznička Czech Republic
5 February Markus Ragger Austria
8 February Arik Braun Germany
14 February Evgeny Romanov Russia
14 February Adam Tukhaev Ukraine
3 March Timur Gareev Uzbekistan
11 March Ante Brkić Croatia
11 March Alexandr Fier Brazil
14 April Pawel Czarnota Poland
18 April Yuriy Ajrapetjan Ukraine
20 April Mark Bluvshtein Canada
21 April Subramanian Arun Prasad India
26 April Boban Bogosavljević Serbia
26 April Rauf Mamedov Azerbaijan
30 April Denes Boros Hungary
13 May Luka Lenič Slovenia
11 June Zhou Jianchao China
21 June Alejandro Ramírez Costa Rica
7 July Wen Yang China
8 August Marin Bosiočić Croatia
23 August Dmitry Kononenko Ukraine
6 September Valentin Iotov Bulgaria
9 September Bassem Amin Egypt
27 September David Baramidze Germany
11 November Yuri Vovk Ukraine
Anatoly Bykhovsky Israel
Nikolai Chadaev Russia
Laszlo Gonda Hungary
Vitaliy Kiselev Russia
Daniel Alsina Leal Spain
Wojciech Moranda Poland
Ioannis Papadopoulos Greece
Pavel Ponkratov Russia
Deep Sengupta India
The following leading chess personality died in 1988:
27 November Jan Hein Donner (b. 1927): Dutch Grandmaster who won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957 and 1958.
The German chess magazine, Deutsche Schachzeitung ceased publication in December 1988, having been published regularly since 1846.
The musical Chess premiered on Broadway in April 1988. It closed in June 1988.
