The Sinquefield Cup is an annual, invitation-only

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition am ...

in St. Louis,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

, United States, honoring

Rex Sinquefield Rex Andrew Sinquefield (; born September 7, 1944) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist who has been called an "index-fund pioneer" for creating the first passively managed index fund open to the general public Sinquefield wa ...

and his wife Jeanne, the founders of the Saint Louis Chess Club. Since 2015, the Sinquefield Cup has been a part of the

Grand Chess Tour The Grand Chess Tour (GCT) is a circuit of chess tournaments where players compete for multiple prize pools. Major tournaments that have been featured in the Grand Chess Tour include Norway Chess, the Sinquefield Cup, and the London Chess Classic. ...

Winners

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,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

. The four grandmasters played the classic

time control A time control is a mechanism in the tournament play of almost all two-player board games so that each round of the match can finish in a timely way and the tournament can proceed. Time controls are typically enforced by means of a game cloc ...

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. The total prize fund was $170,000, with $70,000 going to the winner, $50,000 to runner-up, $30,000 to third place and $20,000 to fourth place. The average

FIDE rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved ...

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. This was the last tournament for Magnus Carlsen before the

World Chess Championship 2013 The World Chess Championship 2013 was a match between reigning world champion Viswanathan Anand and challenger Magnus Carlsen, to determine the 2013 World Chess Champion. It was held from 7 to 25 November 2013 in Chennai, India, under the auspic ...

. :

2014

The second edition was held from August 27 to September 7, at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. It is by rating the strongest tournament in the history of chess, as measured by actual average

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved c ...

of 2802 for the six participants, all in the top ten of FIDE's Elo rating list: Numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9 in the world. The six grandmasters again played the

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 A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition in which each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn.''Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged'' (1971, G. & C. Me ...

. The total prize fund was increased to $315,000, with $100,000 going to the winner. : After round 7, Caruana had achieved a score of 7/7, which was described as a "historical achievement" by

Levon Aronian Levon Grigori Aronian ( hy, Լևոն Գրիգորի Արոնյան, Levon Grigori Aronyan; born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess grandmaster, who currently plays for the United States Chess Federation. A chess prodigy, he earned the titl ...

. Caruana drew his remaining games to finish with 8½/10 and a performance rating of 3098, the highest ever performance rating in a single tournament, besting Carlsen's performance in the 2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament and

Anatoly Karpov Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...

in the 1994 Linares chess tournament. It was compared to

Bobby Fischer Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Championships at the age of 14. In 1964, he won with an 11� ...

's 20-game winning streak in 1970–1971. Vachier-Lagrave finished fourth, ahead of Aronian on tie-break (direct encounter).

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

. The tournament featured the seven top players in the world, a feat only surpassed by the

AVRO 1938 chess tournament The AVRO tournament was a famous chess tournament held in the Netherlands in 1938, sponsored by the Dutch broadcasting company AVRO. The event was a double round-robin tournament between the eight strongest players in the world. Paul Keres and ...

. The Sinquefield Cup is also the strongest tournament featured in the 2015

with an average

FIDE Rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved ...

of 2795. 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. Wesley So was selected as the tournament invite and joined the nine other players already participating in the

. :

2016

The 4th Sinquefield Cup was played between August 4 and 16, 2016. It was rescheduled due to a clash with the 2016 Baku Chess Olympiad. This Sinquefield Cup is one of the tournaments of the 2nd Grand Chess Tour. Ding Liren was selected as the Wild Card for the Sinquefield Cup.

Vladimir Kramnik Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (russian: Влади́мир Бори́сович Кра́мник; born 25 June 1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Ch ...

withdrew from Sinquefield Cup for health reasons. Fellow Russian player

Peter Svidler Pyotr Veniaminovich Svidler (russian: Пётр Вениами́нович Сви́длер; born 17 June 1976), commonly known as Peter Svidler, is a Russian chess grandmaster and an eight-time Russian Chess Champion who now frequently comment ...

replaced him. The prize fund was US$300,000, with $75,000 for 1st place, and points toward the overall 2016

. Players received 120 minutes for 40 moves then 60 minutes for the rest of the game with an additional 30 seconds added per move starting from move 41. In case of a 2-way tie, a 2-game Rapid Match (10 minutes + 5 seconds increment starting from Move #1) followed by a 2-game Blitz Match (5 minutes + 2 seconds increment starting from Move #1) if tied again was to be played. If a tie after the Blitz match, an Armageddon game would decide the winner. All ratings listed below are from the August 2016 rating list. On August 14, 2016, Wesley So won the tournament, with 5½ points out of 9 (+2−0=7), ahead of former World Champions

Veselin Topalov Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; bg, Весели́н Александров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion. Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by wi ...

and

Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have ...

, and former winners

and

Fabiano Caruana Fabiano Luigi Caruana (born July 30, 1992) is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, and 20 days—the youngest grandmaster in the history of both Italy and the United St ...

. :

2017

The 5th Sinquefield Cup was played from August 2 to August 11, 2017, and was the third leg of the 2017

. It was won by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, with 6 points out of 9 (+3−0=6). :

2018

The 6th Sinquefield Cup was the fourth leg on the Grand Chess Tour 2018; Carlsen, Caruana and Aronian tied for first, all with 5½ points out of 9 (+2−0=7). The deciding tiebreaker involved the drawing of lots to decide which two players would participate in the playoff for the title. Carlsen objected to this random chance tiebreaker and proposed a three-way playoff. Caruana did not agree to the three-way playoff as he had a playoff with Wesley So for a place at the 2018 London Chess Classic scheduled on the same day (Caruana would qualify to London after beating So in a playoff 1.5–0.5). The trio reached a compromise and agreed to share the title. :

2019

The 7th Sinquefield Cup was played from August 17 to August 29, 2019, and was the fifth leg of the 2019

. It was won by Ding Liren on tiebreaks, 3–1. Ding Liren and Magnus Carlsen were tied with 6½ points out of 11 (+2−0=9). The prize fund was US$325,000, with $82,500 for 1st place. : :

2021

The 8th Sinquefield Cup was played from August 16 to August 28, 2021, after a break in 2020 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. The tournament was the fifth leg of

Grand Chess Tour 2021 Grand Chess Tour 2021 – was a series of chess tournaments, which was sixth edition of Grand Chess Tour. It consisted five tournaments, including two tournaments with classical time control and three tournaments with faster time controls. It wa ...

. It was won by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, with 6 points out of 9 (+4−1=4). :

2022

The 9th Sinquefield Cup was played from September 1 to September 13, 2022, and was the fifth leg of the

Grand Chess Tour 2022 The Grand Chess Tour 2022 was a series of chess tournaments, which was the seventh edition of the Grand Chess Tour. It consisted of five tournaments with a total prize pool of US$1.4 million, including two tournaments with classical time control ...

. Before the start of the fourth round, Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the tournament during the 2022 Carlsen-Niemann controversy. Subsequently, the three games he had already played were annulled for the standings of the Sinquefield Cup, but they were still included for rating points. Alireza Firouzja won the tournament after beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in a two game playoff. In the table, games with Magnus Carlsen are not counted towards the total of each player's points or wins. :

References

External links

*
Pictured is 2022 winner Alireza Firouzja, flanked by Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield.
{{Chess tournaments Chess competitions Chess in the United States Sports in St. Louis International sports competitions hosted by the United States 2013 establishments in the United States Recurring sporting events established in 2013