The Women's Candidates' Tournament requires a tie-break to separate joint winners Xie Jun and Alisa Marić. In a match that moves from Belgrade to Beijing, Xie Jun wins 41⁄2-21⁄2 and advances to face Maia Chiburdanidze for the Women's World Chess Championship in Manila. The Chinese challenger continues to impress and captures the world title by a score of 81⁄2-61⁄2.
Garry Kasparov wins a strong double-round Tilburg event with 10/14, one and a half points clear of second-placed Short.
Ivanchuk wins at the Linares tournament with 91⁄2/13, ahead of Kasparov on 9/13.
Valery Salov and Short share victory at Amsterdam's 5th Euwe Memorial with 6/9, ahead of Karpov and Kasparov with 51⁄2/9. All four players go through the tournament unbeaten.
In the first tournament of the second World Cup, Ivanchuk and Karpov are winners at Reykjavík with 101⁄2/15. The World Cup is then abandoned, when Kasparov and Karpov are refused their requests for appearance fees and create an impasse. It is a sad conclusion to an exciting new series of events and heralds a decline in the fortunes of the Grandmasters Association (GMA). The World Cup branding is however resurrected much later.
Karpov finishes on top at the double-round, 33rd Reggio Emilia tournament, held at the 1990/91 year end. His winning score of 71⁄2/12 narrowly eclipses Lev Polugaevsky in second place, with 7/12.
Larry Christiansen is successful at a strong tournament in Munich, his 91⁄2/13 being a clear point-and-a-half ahead of second place. With wife Natasha, he moves to Germany to set up a temporary base, as he is spending increasing time playing in Europe. His Munich winning margin is later repeated at the Vienna International, where he finishes with 71⁄2/9, ahead of Vladimir Epishin on 6/9.
Artashes Minasian is the surprising winner of the 58th and final USSR Chess Championship. A symbolic entry of sixty-four contains many future stars, such as Vladimir Kramnik, Alexei Shirov and Sergei Tiviakov. Kramnik, at just sixteen, is the newly crowned Under-18 World Youth Champion. At the other end of the spectrum, Mikhail Tal participates, but is desperately unwell and it turns out to be one of his last tournaments.
