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2002 Philatelic Issues
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16th World Chess Championship
On March 29th, 2002; Ukraine issued a stamp commemorating the 16th World Chess Championship finals. held in Moscow, Russia from January 16-24th, 2002. The final matches had the Ukrainian grandmasters Vassily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomariov playing for chess supremacy in an 8-match set.
The stamp shows two knights battling each other over a crown on a chess board. In the middle, we have the inscription "Ruslan Ponomarilov - 16th World Champion in chess".
A pictorial cancellation was used for the First Day of Issue cover. Cancellation was done in Kyiv.
| Face Value
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3.50 hrv
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| Colour
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Multicolour
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| Design
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Katerina Shtanko
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| Printing Method
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Offset
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| Printers
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"Derzhznak" - Kyiv
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| Perforation
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13.5 x 13.5
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| Sheet
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16 (4 x 4)
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| Stamp Size
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40 x 28 mm
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| Issue
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200,000
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Vassily Ivanchuk
32 years old, born
March 18, 1969 in Berezhany, Lvivska oblast (Western Ukraine).
Ivanchuk is regarded
as one of the deepest thinkers in chess. He displays a wide openings repertoire
and knowledge of a prodigious number of games. At the same time, he is
a very daring tactical player and often comes up with highly imaginative
new combinational ideas.
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Ruslan Ponomariov
18 years old, born
on October 11, 1983 in Horlivka, Donetska oblast (Eastern Ukraine).
Ponomariov started
to play chess at a relatively late age of seven, but his rise to world
class was meteoric. At 14 years and 17 days he became the youngest grandmaster
in the history of the game, breaking Bobby Fischer's record (15 years and 6
months) and those of other child prodigies.
The Ponomariov style
is basically strategic, so that he was often likened to Karpov. But Ruslan
is also very willing to sacrifice material, which is unusual for a positional
player.
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After only seven matches, Ruslan defeated Vassily by a score of 4.5 to 2.5. As a result, Ruslan Ponomariov became the youngest winner of a world championship title in the history of the game .
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