The Sinquefield Cup is the marquee classical event of the Grand Chess Tour calendar and has been the strongest annual non-championship tournament in the world since its founding in 2013. The 13th edition will be held at the Saint Louis Chess Club from August 17 to 28, 2026 — a ten-player round-robin at classical time control, with a prize fund of $350,000.
Founded by Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield as part of their broader effort to establish Saint Louis as the chess capital of the United States, the Sinquefield Cup’s roll of winners reads like a who’s-who of modern chess: Magnus Carlsen (2013, 2018, 2021, 2023, 2024), Fabiano Caruana (2014, 2022), Levon Aronian (2017), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (2017 co-), Wesley So (2017), and Ding Liren (2019).
The 2014 edition is particularly famous: Caruana won with a 8.5/10 score and a 3098 performance rating — the highest performance in the history of top-level chess. Carlsen, who finished second, called it the strongest individual-event performance he had ever seen.
The 2026 edition’s field will include the top-three GCT regulars (Carlsen, Caruana, Nakamura) plus seven invited grandmasters from the world’s elite. The Saint Louis Chess Club’s broadcast operation — with multi-camera coverage, engine analysis, and parallel commentary in English and Spanish — remains the gold standard for elite chess streaming.
For the live broadcast, final standings, and GCT season-wide standings, see the official Grand Chess Tour site linked in the right column.