FIDE World FR Chess Championship 2019 - Magnus Carlsen

FIDE World FR Chess Championship 2019 - Nepomniachtchi v So

FIDE FR WCH - Nepomniachtchi problems when lifting Rook before King when castling

The FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019 (WFRCC) was the first world championship in

Fischer random chess Fischer random chess, also known as Chess960 (often read in this context as 'chess nine-sixty' instead of 'chess nine hundred sixty'), is a variation of the game of chess invented by the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer announ ...

officially recognized by the international chess federation

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

. Previous unofficial championships had been held, with the most recent winner being

Magnus Carlsen Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who is the reigning five-time World Chess Champion. He is also a three-time World Rapid Chess Champion and five-time World Blitz Chess Champion. Carlsen has h ...

in 2018. The competition started on April 28, 2019, with the first qualifying tournaments, which took place

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

and were open to all interested participants; and continued with further rounds up to the quarter-finals, which were also online. The semi-finals and final were played over the board between October 27 to November 2, 2019, in the

Henie Onstad Kunstsenter The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter is an art museum located at Høvikodden in Bærum municipality in Viken county, Norway. It is situated on a headland jutting into the Oslofjord, approximately southwest of Oslo. History The artcentre was founded ...

Bærum Bærum () is a municipality in the Greater Oslo Region in Norway that forms an affluent suburb of Oslo on the west coast of the city. Bærum is Norway's fifth largest municipality with a population of 128,760 (2021). It is part of the electoral ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The winner of the final was

Wesley So Wesley Barbossa So (born October 9, 1993) is a Filipino and American chess grandmaster and 3-time U.S. Chess Champion (in 2017, 2020, and 2021). He is also a three-time Philippine Chess Champion. On the March 2017 FIDE rating list, he was ran ...

, defeating

13.5–2.5, to become the first

world champion in Fischer random chess. Over the course of the competition, various

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 clock, ...

s were applied, with longer games being weighted more heavily.

Rounds

The championship included several rounds with different time controls, organizational forms and access requirements.

First qualifying round

The first qualifying round was open to all interested chess players without a title and was played online via the

chess server An Internet chess server (ICS) is an external server that provides the facility to play, discuss, and view the board game of chess over the Internet. The term specifically refers to facilities for connecting players through a variety of graphical ...

chess.com Chess.com is an internet chess server, news website and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be pla ...

. Each of 32 groups played a

Swiss-system tournament A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

with 9 rounds and a time control of 10 minutes for the entire game plus an increment of 2 seconds per move. The top 5 players from each group qualified for the second qualifying round, for a total of 160 players.

Second qualifying round

The second qualifying round was open to the 160 qualifiers from the first qualifying round as well as all FIDE title holders. Each of 12 groups played a Swiss-system tournament with 9 rounds, also with a time control of 10 minutes plus 2 seconds increment. The top 7 players from each group qualified for the third qualifying round, for a total of 84 players.

Third qualifying round

The 84 qualifiers from the second qualifying round were divided into 6 groups of 14 players each. Each group was supplemented by two invited chess players. Each group of 16 players played a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

. In each round of the tournament, the two players played a “minimatch” consisting of two games with opposite color assignments. In case of a tie, another minimatch with shorter time control was played, and another one with even shorter time control if the tie persisted. If there was still no decisive result after the third minimatch, the pairing was decided by an Armageddon game. While the first two qualifying rounds brought a number of surprises, the winners of the third qualifying round were all near the top of the

FIDE world rankings The International Chess Federation (FIDE) governs international chess competition. Each month, FIDE publishes the lists "Top 100 Players", "Top 100 Women", "Top 100 Juniors" and "Top 100 Girls" rankings of countries according to the average rating ...

in standard chess. Nevertheless, some prominent players were knocked out, including

Jan-Krzysztof Duda Jan-Krzysztof Duda (; born 26 April 1998) is a Polish chess grandmaster. A prodigy, he achieved the grandmaster title in 2013 at the age of 15 years and 21 days. he is ranked No. 1 in Poland and No. 18 in the world. His personal best rating ...

Sergey Karjakin Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin, . (born 12 January 1990) is a Russian chess grandmaster (formerly representing Ukraine). A chess prodigy, he previously held the record for the world's youngest ever grandmaster, (until it was eventually taken b ...

Alexander Grischuk Alexander Igorevich Grischuk (born October 31, 1983) is a Russian chess grandmaster. Grischuk was the Russian champion in 2009. He is also a three-time world blitz chess champion (in 2006, 2012 and 2015). He has competed in five Candidates T ...

and

Leinier Domínguez Leinier Domínguez Pérez (born September 23, 1983) is a Cuban and American chess grandmaster. A five-time Cuban champion, Domínguez was the world champion in blitz chess in 2008. He competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2002 and 2 ...

. The following 6 players qualified for the quarterfinals: Two more players were seeded directly into the quarterfinals: The runner-up in the

World Chess Championship 2018 The World Chess Championship 2018 was a match between the reigning world champion since 2013, Magnus Carlsen, and the challenger Fabiano Caruana to determine the World Chess Champion. The 12-game match, organised by FIDE and its commercial pa ...

in standard chess,

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 Sta ...

, and the runner-up in the unofficial Fischer Random world championship match 2018,

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru Nakamurarepechage Repechage (; french: repêchage, "fishing out, rescuing") is a practice in series competitions that allows participants who failed to meet qualifying standards by a small margin to continue to the next round. A well known example is the wild car ...

. On the third day, the winners of the first two days played each other in pairs. The three winners qualified for the semifinals: Caruana, Wesley So and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Each match of the quarterfinals consisted of two “slow” rapid games (45 minutes for 40 moves plus 15 minutes for the rest, without increment), two “fast” rapid games (15 minutes plus 2 seconds increment) and 2 blitz games (3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment). The games were weighted differently: 3 points for each slow rapid game, 2 points for each fast rapid game and 1 point for each blitz game. Only one match was tied after the 6 games, the one between Nepomniachtchi and Alireza Firouzja on the first day. Nepomniachtchi won the deciding Armageddon game.

Day 1

Day 2 (repechage)

Day 3

The matches between Caruana and Nakamura and between Nepomniachtchi and Firouzja ended when a player won by reaching 6½ points. The match between So and Fedoseev was also already decided after the third game with 6½:1½ points in favour of So. Nevertheless, the two players decided to play the remaining three games, even though they were no longer relevant for the qualification for the semifinals.

Semifinals and finals

The semifinals and the finals took place from October 27 to November 2. In the semifinals, the three qualifiers from the quarterfinals were joined by the world champion in standard chess and the unofficial world champion in Chess960,

. The schedule was as follows:

Semifinals

So won the semifinal match against Nepomniachtchi by reaching a score of 13–5 in the third fast rapid game. Carlsen won the semifinal match against Caruana by reaching a score of 12½-7½ in the last fast rapid game. Thus, So and Carlsen qualified for the final, while Nepomniachtchi and Caruana played for third place.

Finals and third-place match

The bracket below shows the first-place match between Carlsen and So as well as the third-place match between Nepomniachtchi and Caruana. The matches took place concurrently. So won the championship, defeating Carlsen 13½-2½. Nepomniachtchi beat Caruana 12½-5½ to take third place. {, class="wikitable" ! rowspan = "3" style="background-color: #eaecf0", Player ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 1 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 2 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 3 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 4 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 5 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 6 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 7 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 8 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 9 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 10 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 11 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", 12 ! style="width: 3em;background-color: #eaecf0", TB ! rowspan= "3" , Total , - style="text-align:center" , style="background-color: #eaecf0" colspan="4" , Slow rapid , style="background-color: #eaecf0" colspan="4" , Fast rapid , style="background-color: #eaecf0" colspan="4" , Blitz , style="background-color: #eaecf0" , Armageddon , - , - style="text-align:center" , style="background-color: #eaecf0" colspan="4" , 3 points per game , style="background-color: #eaecf0" colspan="4" , 2 points per game , style="background-color: #eaecf0" colspan="4" , 1 point per game , style="background-color: #eaecf0" , 1 point per game , - , Magnus Carlsen , style="text-align:center", 1½ , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center", 0 , style="text-align:center", 1 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center" rowspan="2" colspan="7", Not
required , style="text-align:center", 2½ , - , Wesley So , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 1½ , style="text-align:center", 3 , style="text-align:center", 3 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 3 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 1 , style="text-align:center", 2 , style="text-align:center", 13½ , - , colspan="15" , , - , Ian Nepomniachtchi , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center", 3 , style="text-align:center", 3 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 1½ , style="text-align:center", 2 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 1 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 2 , style="text-align:center" rowspan="2" colspan="6", Not
required , style="text-align:center", 12½ , - , {{flagicon, USA Fabiano Caruana , style="text-align:center", 3 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center", 1½ , style="text-align:center; background:black; color:white", 0 , style="text-align:center", 1 , style="text-align:center", 0 , style="text-align:center", 5½ , - style="background-color: #eaecf0" , style="text-align:center", Starting position , style="text-align:center", 294 , style="text-align:center", 294 , style="text-align:center", 729 , style="text-align:center", 729 , style="text-align:center", 253 , style="text-align:center", 253 , style="text-align:center", 381 , style="text-align:center", , style="text-align:center", , style="text-align:center", , style="text-align:center", , style="text-align:center", , style="text-align:center", ,

References

External links

Official web site of the event
Fischer random chess World championships in chess 2019 in chess 2019 in Norwegian sport International sports competitions hosted by Norway Sport in Bærum Chess in Norway November 2019 sports events in Europe December 2019 sports events in Europe