One of the most prestigious chess invitationals in the world, the 2023 edition of the Sinquefield Cup marks the conclusion of the year’s Grand Chess Tour, settling the fate of at least one of the remaining spots at next year’s Candidates Tournament along the way.
What is the Sinquefield Cup?
The Sinquefield Cup is an annual super-tournament organized by the St. Louis Chess Club as part of its Grand Chess Tour series of competitions. It is always the final leg of the tour and takes place straight after the St. Louis Rapid & Blitz in the same venue, which features faster time controls. It is among the highest-caliber chess events on the calendar, often featuring all of the strongest players in the world. For a non-FIDE event, you’d struggle to find something more prestigious than this.
The Sinquefield Cup is named after Rex Sinquefield, the host and patron of the St. Louis Chess Club and its scholastic initiatives.
The 2022 edition of the event featured Hans Niemann’s infamous win over Magnus Carlsen, which sparked one of the biggest chess cheating controversies in the game’s modern history.
What is the Grand Chess Tour?
The Grand Chess Tour is an overarching circuit of chess competitions organized under the auspices of the St. Louis Chess Club. While it only features its own affiliated events in most years, it has previously also counted results from Norway Chess or the London Chess Classic in its final standings, and there have also been aborted discussions with FIDE about making the tour a formal part of the Candidates Tournament qualification process.
Every year, there are permanent tour participants, who are playing in four out of the five events to make up their tour points total, and invited wildcard players. Points earned in one of the two classical events amount to more than the ones picked up in the rapid and blitz events.
The 2023 edition of the tour featured the following events:
- Superbet Chess Classic Romania (won by Fabiano Caruana)
- Poland GCT Rapid & Blitz (won by Magnus Carlsen)
- Croatia GCT Rapid & Blitz (won by Magnus Carlsen)
- St. Louis Rapid & Blitz (won by Fabiano Caruana)
- Sinquefield Cup
Caruana leads the standings by 11 points, requiring just an eighth-place finish in the ten-player field to secure himself the overall tour win. Carlsen, as a wildcard player, isn’t eligible for the big prize.
Sinquefield Cup 2023—schedule, players, format
The 2023 edition of the Sinquefield Cup features the following players:
- Ian Nepomniachtchi
- Alireza Firouzja
- Fabiano Caruana
- Anish Giri
- Levon Aronian
- Wesley So
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
- Jan-Krzysztof Duda
- Richárd Rapport
- Leinier Dominguez
The Sinquefield Cup is a classical event, featuring a round-robin format, with the players getting 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, with 30 extra minutes added after that. There is also a 30-second increment per move from the beginning of the game.
Since the event counts towards the FIDE Circuit points total, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja, and Wesley So will have an eye on their ratings and their final results as they try to pick up one of the few remaining spots in the 2024 Candidates Tournament.
The event takes place between Nov. 21 and Nov. 30, with a rest day on Nov. 26. Should the Grand Chess Tour standings require a playoff (an unlikely possibility this year), they will take place on Dec. 1.
