Author: Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis signed by Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen, Veselin Topalov, Maxime Vachier-Legrave, Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nkamura
Year: 2014
Publisher: Sinquefield Cup
Place: St Louis
Description:
Poster (16 3/4" x 10 3/4") in color signed by all the participants.
The Second Sinquefield Cup participants with seven consecutive wins was Fabiano Caruana; followed by World Champion Magnus Carlsen (second); Veselin Topalov former World Champion took third; tied for fourth through fifth was Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, former World Junior Champion, and Levon Aronian. A disappointment was Hikaru Nakamura in last place.
The Cup was held from August 27 to September 7, again at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. The event in 2013 was the strongest chess tournament ever held in the U.S. up until that time. The 2014 edition, however, is (numerically) the strongest in the total history of chess, as measured by actual ELO-ratings of the (this time) six opponents, all in the top ten of FIDE's ELO-rating list. The six grandmasters again played the modernized classic time control of 40 moves in 90 minutes with a 30-second increment for every move, followed by an additional 30 minutes plus the per-move-increment for the rest of the game, in a double round-robin tournament. With the six players present (Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Veselin Topalov, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave), the tournament consisted of ten rounds with 10 games to play for every participant. According to the FIDE rating, the players were the nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9 in the world. The total prize fund was increased to $315,000. After round 7, Caruana had achieved a score of 7-0, which was described as an "historical achievement" by Levon Aronian. Caruana finally finished the tournament with 8.5/10, with the highest ever performance rating in a single tournament, beating out Magnus Carlsen in the 2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament and Anatoly Karpov in the 1994 Linares chess tournament. It was widely compared to Bobby Fischer's 20 game winning streak in 1970-71.
Condition:
Light edge wear else a near fine copy.
SOLD 2023