2016 Sinquefield Cup (St. Louis, USA)

Defending Champion, GM Levon Aronian (Armenia)
Photo by Lennart Ootes

With the World Champion Magnus Carlsen dropping out of the Grand Chess Tour to prepare for the World Championship in November and Vladimir Kramnik dropping out for what is presumed to be health issues, the Sinquefield Cup will be missing two legendary attractions, but will still be a powerful event. The American triad of Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So will hold down home court against the top seed and world #2, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who has vaulted twenty spaces from last year.

MVL on his rise "My opening preparations have been working much better, so I'm getting positions I feel very much at ease" #SinquefieldCup

— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) August 5, 2016

In the 2015 Sinquefield Cup, MVL was #24 in the world at 2731, but now has a rating of 2819, a career-high. There have been wild fluctuations in rating of several of the competitors with drops by Giri (-24 from 2793), Anand (-46 from 2816) and Topalov (-55 from 2816) from a year ago. Levon Aronian is the defending champion of the Sinquefield Cup and has rebounded after a slump in 2014-2015.

The Sinquefield Cup had been rescheduled due to the changing of the Olympiad which was affected by the World Championship. It was a cascading effect. Nevertheless, the field has an All-Star line-up with China’s Ding Liren and seven-time Russian champion Peter Svidler filling in the vacated spots.

The 2016 Sinquefield Cup is an elite international event, featuring 10 of the strongest chess players in the world. Over the course of nine rounds, these competitors will battle for $300,000 in prize money (first: $75,000, second: $50,000, third: $40,000, last: $15,000) plus points toward the Grand Chess Tour and the coveted title of 2016 Sinquefield Cup Champion.

The venue is the Chess Club and Scholastic Center at 4657 Maryland Avenue, Saint Louis, MO 63108. Tickets cost $10 per round or $80 for all ten rounds. Full information available at the official web site. Live commentary will be given by an eminent line-up of Maurice Ashley, Jennifer Shahade, Yasser Seirawan with roaming commentating by Alejandro Ramirez. For more information, visit www.grandchesstour.com or follow along at @CCSCSL.

2016 Sinquefield Cup August 4th – August 16th, 2016 (St. Louis, USA) Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (4657 Maryland Ave.)
Players
Rank	Name	Rating	Country	Flag	Age
No. 2	GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2819	France		25
No. 4	GM Fabiano Caruana	2807	USA		23
No. 5	GM Levon Aronian	2792	Armenia		33
No. 6	GM Hikaru Nakamura	2791	USA		29
No. 7	GM Wesley So	2771	USA		22
No. 8	GM Viswanathan Anand	2770	India		47
No. 10	GM Anish Giri	2769	Netherlands		22
No. 11	GM Veselin Topalov	2761	Bulgaria		41
No. 13	GM Ding Liren	2755	China		22
No. 14	GM Peter Svidler	2751	Russia		40
Official Site