Sinquefield Cup
The Sinquefield Cup is an annual, invite-only chess tournament in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, honoring Rex Sinquefield and his wife Jeanne, the founders of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.
Contents
Sinquefield Cup 2013
The first edition (working title: 2013 Saint Louis International) was held from 9 to 15 September 2013 at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis in St. Louis, Missouri, United States.[1] The four grandmasters played the classic time control 40 moves in 90 minutes with a 30-second increment as of move one, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game in double round-robin format.[2] The total prize fund was $170,000,[3] with $70,000 going to the winner, $50,000 to runner-up, $30,000 to third place and $20,000 to fourth place.[4] The average FIDE rating for the field was 2797, the highest rated tournament at the time. The opening ceremony took place on 8 September 2013, and round 1 was held the next day.[5] This was the last tournament for Magnus Carlsen before the World Chess Championship 2013.[6]
-
Player FIDE rating 1 2 3 4 Points 1 
Magnus Carlsen (Norway)2862 X ½½ ½1 11 4½ 2 
Hikaru Nakamura (United States)2772 ½½ X 10 1½ 3½ 3 
Levon Aronian (Armenia)2813 ½0 01 X ½½ 2½ 4 Gata Kamsky (United States)2741 00 0½ ½½ X 1½
Sinquefield Cup 2014
The second edition was held from August 27 to September 7, at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.[7] The 2014 edition, however, is by rating the strongest in the history of chess, as measured by actual average Elo ratings of 2802 for the six opponents, all in the top ten of FIDE's Elo rating list.
The six grandmasters again played the time control of 40 moves in 90 minutes with a 30-second increment for every move, followed by an additional 30 minutes plus the per-move-increment for the rest of the game, in a double round-robin tournament. According to the FIDE rating, the players were Numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9 in the world.
The total prize fund was increased to $315,000, with $100,000 going to the winner.[8]
-
Player Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 Points TPR 1 
Fabiano Caruana (Italy)2801 * * 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 8½ 3097 2 Magnus Carlsen (Norway)2877 0 ½ * * ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 5½ 2822 3 
Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria)2772 0 0 ½ ½ * * 0 ½ 1 ½ 1 1 5 2807 4 Levon Aronian (Armenia)2805 0 ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ * * 0 ½ ½ ½ 4 2729 5 
Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France)2768 0 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ 1 ½ * * ½ ½ 4 2736 6 Hikaru Nakamura (United States)2787 0 ½ ½ 0 0 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ * * 3 2655
After round 7, Caruana had achieved a score of 7/7, which was described as an "historical achievement" by Levon Aronian.[9] Caruana drew his remaining games to finish with 8.5/10, the highest ever performance rating in a single tournament, besting Magnus Carlsen's performance in the 2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament and Anatoly Karpov in the 1994 Linares chess tournament.[10] It was compared to Bobby Fischer's 20 game winning streak in 1970-71.[10][11]
Sinquefield Cup 2015
The third edition was held from August 22 to September 3, at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis as the second leg in the 2015 Grand Chess Tour. The tournament featured the seven top players in the world, a feat only surpassed by the AVRO 1938 chess tournament.[12] The Sinquefield Cup is also the strongest tournament featured in the 2015 Grand Chess Tour with an average FIDE Rating of 2795.[13]
The 2015 Sinquefield Cup was a single round-robin> event held with a time control of 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by the rest of the game in 1 hour with a 30-second increment from move 41.[14] Wesley So was selected as the tournament invite and joined the nine other players already participating in the Grand Chess Tour.[13]
-
Player Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Points Wins SB Tour Points 1 Levon Aronian (Armenia)2765 X ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 6 3 25.25 13 2 Magnus Carlsen (Norway)2853 ½ X ½ 1 ½ 0 0 1 ½ 1 5 3 21.25 10 3 Hikaru Nakamura (United States)2814 0 ½ X ½ ½ 1 0 ½ 1 1 5 3 20.25 8 4 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France)2731 ½ 0 ½ X ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ 1 5 2 21.25 7 5 
Anish Giri (Netherlands)2793 ½ ½ ½ ½ X ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 5 1 22.25 6 6 
Alexander Grischuk (Russia)2771 ½ 1 0 ½ 0 X ½ 1 1 0 4½ 3 19.75 5 7 Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria)2816 ½ 1 1 0 ½ ½ X 0 ½ ½ 4½ 2 21 4 8 Fabiano Caruana (United States)2808 0 0 ½ ½ ½ 0 1 X ½ ½ 3½ 1 15.25 3 9 
Viswanathan Anand (India)2816 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ X ½ 3½ 0 16 2 10 Wesley So (United States)2779 0 0 0 0 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ X 3 1 12.75 1
Sinquefield Cup 2016
The 4th Sinquefield Cup will be played between August 4th and 16th, 2016. It was rescheduled due to a clash with the 2016 Baku Chess Olympiad. This Sinquefield Cup will be one of the tournaments of the 2nd Grand Chess Tour.
Ding Liren was selected as the Wild Card for the Sinquefield Cup. [15]
All ratings listed below are from the April 2016 rating list.
-
Player Rating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Points Wins SB Tour Points 1 Vladimir Kramnik (Russia)2801 X 2 Fabiano Caruana (United States)2795 X 3 Hikaru Nakamura (United States)2787 X 4 Wesley So (United States)2773 X 5 Anish Giri (Netherlands)2790 X 6 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France)2788 X 7 Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria)2754 X 8 Levon Aronian (Armenia)2784 X 9 Viswanathan Anand (India)2770 X 10 
Ding Liren (China)2777 X
References
- ↑ Chess-News.ru: St. Louis To Host Four Leaders
- ↑ U.S. Chess Champs: Top 2 in World, Top 2 in U.S. Battle for Sinquefield Cup
- ↑ ChessBase: Carlsen and Aronian to play in US Super-GM
- ↑ U.S. Chess Champs: The Sinquefield Cup
- ↑ ChessVibes.com: Carlsen, Aronian, Nakamura, Kamsky to play in first "Sinquefield Cup"
- ↑ Sinquefield Chess Cup 2013
- ↑ U.S. Chess Champs - LIVE: Sinquefield Cup 2014
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Top Players Return To St. Louis
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Sinquefield 2015: Overview
- ↑ Chess Grand Tour: Rules & Regulations
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
