Sinquefield Cup starts Sunday

2015 Sinquefield Cup This super-GM single Round Robin brings together some of the best players in the world. This is the second leg of the Grand Chess Tour. The players – Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Fabiano Caruana (USA), Hikaru Nakamura (USA), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Anish Giri (Netherlands), Viswanathan Anand (India), Wesley So (USA). The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets can be purchased at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Preview

It is finally here! The 2015 Sinquefield Cup, probably the strongest tournament of the year, starts tomorrow! All of the players have arrived in Saint Louis and are ready to start a new venture. Some come in tip-top shape, such as the veterans Veselin Topalov and Viswanathan Anand, not to mention America's #1 Hikaru Nakamura, while others come into the event trying to forget about the disasters in Norway and trying to get a new start. First, let us look at the current standings in the Grand Chess Tour:

Few expect Caruana to repeat his historical 7-0 start, he has had a rough year, though he did have a great Dortmund as his last tournament.

Carlsen is definitely still one of the players to watch out for, but with his disastrous last tournament (Norway 2015) he still has a lot to prove.

Today there was a two hour autograph session. Over 300 fans lined up outside the Kingside Diner to get the signatures of their favorite players:

The players signing vinyl boards

Fans brought all kind of gear to get signed

Malcolm Pein, organizer of the London Chess Classic, overseeing Aronian vs. Caruana as they
test the DGT boards. Karthik Ramachandran and Vishy Anand also look.

No stopping any fan from meeting their legend!

Nakamura, sponsored by Red Bull, was accompanied by two red bull girls

A relatively short opening ceremony including a Q&A with the players

The drawing of lots was done by the players choosing an envelope and a nice dress jacket. Inside the envelope was a number. As fate would have it, there will be two repeats from the Norway 2015 first round in the Sinquefield first round: Giri vs. Grischuk (a win for Giri in Norway) and Carlsen vs. Topalov (a pretty famous time forfeit for the World Champion).

The action starts tomorrow at 1 p.m. CST, make sure to tune in on playchess.com for your live commentary, or on the official website!

Photos by Lennart Ootes

Pairings

Games start at 1 p.m. local time (20:00h CEST, 22:00h Moscow, Thursday 12:30 New Delhi, 03:00h Tokyo, 04:00 Canberra – check your location here).

Playoffs, if necessary, will be on September 2.

The games will be broadcast live on Playchess, with expert analysis (see schedule below).

Broadcast Schedule

Links Official tournament site The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download a free Playchess client there and get immediate access. You can also use ChessBase 12 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs.