Chess World Cup

The Chess World Cup is the name given to a number of different chess tournaments. The format and significance of the tournaments has changed over the years.

History

In 1988-99, the Grandmasters Association organised a series of six high-ranking World Cup tournaments in the form of a 'Grand Prix'.

In 2000 and 2002 FIDE, the World Chess Federation, staged their "First Chess World Cup" and "Second Chess World Cup" respectively. These were major tournaments, but not directly linked to the World Chess Championship. Both the 2000 and 2002 events were won by Viswanathan Anand of India.

Since 2005, a different event of the same name has been part of the World Chess Championship cycle. This event is being held every two years. It is a 128-player knockout tournament, in the same style as the Tilburg tournament from 1992-94, or the 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002 and 2004 FIDE World Championships.

The event was held in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011 in Khanty-Mansiysk, and subsequently FIDE has given preference to bids for the Olympiad that also contain a bid for the preceding World Cup. During the 2015 finals of the World Cup, the main organizer commented "We received the right to host the Olympiad and then we were given an additional event - the World Cup."

The Chess World Cup 2005 qualified ten players for the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2007. This event was won by Armenian GM Levon Aronian. The Chess World Cup 2007 qualified one player for the next stage of the World Chess Championship 2010. This event was won by American GM Gata Kamsky.

The Chess World Cup 2009 qualified one player for the World Chess Championship 2012 cycle, Israeli GM Boris Gelfand won this event. The Chess World Cup 2011 qualified three players for the World Chess Championship 2013 cycle, Russian GM Peter Svidler won this event. The Chess World Cup 2013 qualified two players for the World Chess Championship 2014 cycle, Russian GM Vladimir Kramnik won this event.

Winners

Year	Dates	Host	Players	Qual.	Winner	Runner-up	Third place	Fourth place
2000	1-13 Sep	Shenyang, China	24	-	Viswanathan Anand	Evgeny Bareev	Boris Gelfand and Gilberto Milos
2002	9-22 Sep	Hyderabad, India	24	-	Viswanathan Anand	Rustam Kasimdzhanov	Alexander Beliavsky and Alexey Dreev
2005	27 Nov - 17 Dec	Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia	128	10	Levon Aronian	Ruslan Ponomariov	Étienne Bacrot	Alexander Grischuk
2007	24 Nov - 16 Dec	Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia	128	1	Gata Kamsky	Alexei Shirov	Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin
2009	20 Nov - 14 Dec	Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia	128	1	Boris Gelfand	Ruslan Ponomariov	Sergey Karjakin and Vladimir Malakhov
2011	26 Aug - 21 Sep	Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia	128	3	Peter Svidler	Alexander Grischuk	Vassily Ivanchuk	Ruslan Ponomariov
2013	10 Aug - 4 Sep	Tromsø, Norway	128	2	Vladimir Kramnik	Dmitry Andreikin	Evgeny Tomashevsky and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
2015	10 Sep - 5 Oct	Baku, Azerbaijan	128	2	Sergey Karjakin	Peter Svidler	Anish Giri and Pavel Eljanov

Read more:

• FIDE Grand Prix