World Champion in Fischer Random Chess

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The world champion in Fischer random chess, Wesley So

FIDE has only been awarding the title of World Champion in Fischer Random Chess since 2019. The first World Championship in Fischer Random Chess was held under different tournament modes and different time limits, starting with qualifying rounds in the Swiss system and a time limit for "slow blitz chess " up to Ko system, where more heavily weighted games were played during the "slow rapid chess " period. Wesley So won and is now the first official world champion in this discipline, which is also known as Chess960 , as there are a total of 960 possible (randomly selected) positions of the chess pieces on the back row of each party in this chess variant .

Since 2001/03 the Chess Classic in Mainz has held unofficial Chess960 World Championships under rapid chess time control. The title went to Pyotr Swidler (2003, 2004, 2005), Levon Aronjan (2006, 2007) and Hikaru Nakamura (2009). Then this series ended. Only in 2018, one year before the official world championships were introduced by FIDE, was another duel between the last (2009) title holder, Nakamura, and the world chess champion Magnus Carlsen , who was viewed by many as the unofficial world championship. Carlsen won this competition.

The unofficial world champions in Chess960 in rapid chess time control

From the beginnings of the unofficial Chess960 World Championships in 2001 until the resumption in 2018

The Chess Tigers and the final of the 2009 Chess960 Rapid World Championship

The mode of the Chess960 world championships is closely linked to the classic chess world championships . Up to and including 2006, the world champion only had to defend his title against one challenger, namely against the Chess960 Open winner from the previous year.

In 2001, Péter Lékó and Michael Adams dueled in Chess960. Lékó was chosen because on the one hand he had introduced many innovations into chess theory and on the other hand he was the winner of the previous year's tournament. In addition, he had played Fischer Random Chess with Fischer himself. Adams was chosen because he led the world rankings in blitz chess and was considered an extremely strong player in unusual situations. Lékó won 4.5: 3.5. The match has not yet been declared a world championship.

In 2003 Lékó, now called "Chess960 World Champion", competed against the winner of the Chess960 Open of 2002, Pjotr ​​Swidler , for the Chess960 World Championship. Swidler won and defended his title in 2004 and 2005, but lost it to Levon Aronjan in 2006 .

In 2006 a Chess960 world champion was determined for the first time in a women’s tournament in Mainz. The title went to Alexandra Kostenjuk . In addition, 2006 was the only one so far in which senior and junior world championships were held in the Chess960. They were won by Vlastimil Hort and P. Harikrishna respectively.

Since 2007, the world champion has had to defend his title against three opponents in a double-round tournament followed by a final for the top two. Lewon Aronjan succeeded in this in 2007 and Alexandra Kostenjuk in 2008, when only women had to fight for the Chess960 World Championship.

In 2009 Levon Aronjan lost the title to Hikaru Nakamura . After that, no Chess960 world championships were held for a long time.

It wasn't until 2018 that there was a match between the defending champion (2009) and Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion in classical chess. It was held from February 9th to 13th at the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo . On the first four days of the competition two games were played with swapped colors and the same starting positions. The time to think about it was 45 minutes for 40 moves plus 15 minutes for the rest of the game. Each of these games was scored twice. After that, Carlsen led with 9 to 7 points. On the fifth day, a further eight games were played, but only with 10 minutes to think about the entire game. These rapid chess games were simply scored. Carlsen won the competition with 14:10.

List of the unofficial world champions in Chess960 in rapid chess time control

Péter Lékó is not printed in bold and shaded in light gray, as he was only called "World Champion" in retrospect.

World Champion

year place World Champion Number of participants Tournament mode Result and opponent of the final duel
2001 Mainz HungaryHungary Péter Lékó 2 Duel over 8 games 4.5: 3.5 versus Adams
2003 Mainz RussiaRussia Pyotr Swidler 2 Duel over 8 games 4.5: 3.5 against Lékó
2004 Mainz RussiaRussia Pyotr Swidler 2 Duel over 8 games 4.5: 3.5 against Aronjan
2005 Mainz RussiaRussia Pyotr Swidler 2 Duel over 8 games 5: 3 against Almási
2006 Mainz ArmeniaArmenia Levon Aronjan 2 Duel over 8 games 5: 3 against Swidler
2007 Mainz ArmeniaArmenia Levon Aronjan 4th double round, then final 2: 2 against Anand , 1.5: 0.5 in the tiebreak
2009 Mainz United StatesUnited States Hikaru Nakamura 4th double round, then final 3.5: 0.5 against Aronjan
2018 Oslo NorwayNorway Magnus Carlsen 2 Duel over 16 games 14:10 points against Nakamura
  1. 8 long games were scored twice, 8 rapid games were scored once.

World champions

year place world champion Number of participants Tournament mode Result and opponent of the final duel
2006 Mainz RussiaRussia Alexandra Kostenjuk 2 Duel over 8 games 5.5: 2.5 against Pähtz
2008 Mainz RussiaRussia Alexandra Kostenjuk 4th double round, then final 2.5: 1.5 against Lagno

Senior World Champion

year place Senior World Champion Number of participants Tournament mode Result and opponent of the final duel
2006 Mainz Czech RepublicCzech RepublicGermanyGermany Vlastimil hoard 2 Duel over 8 games 4: 4 against Portisch , 1.5: 0.5 in the tiebreaker

Junior world champion

year place Junior world champion Number of participants Tournament mode Result and opponent of the final duel
2006 Mainz IndiaIndia P. Harikrishna 2 Duel over 8 games 4.5: 3.5 versus Naiditsch

List of the official world champions in Chess960

year place World Champion Result and opponent of the final duel
2019 Baerum United StatesUnited States Wesley So 13.5: 2.5 against Magnus Carlsen

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. “The World Fischer Random Chess Championship is now officially recognized by FIDE”, online on the website of the World Chess Federation FIDE , accessed on April 21, 2019.
  2. a b Article by Peter Doggers on chess.com , accessed on February 14, 2018.
  3. In 2002 it was still said: "We can also look forward to our first unofficial world champion."
  4. Lékó dubbed "Chess960 World Champion" ( Memento from February 8, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  5. Regulations on the homepage of the competition , accessed on February 14, 2018.