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FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019

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FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019
Wesley So, the winner of the FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019.
VenueQualifiers & quarterfinals
Internet chess server
Semifinals & finals
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter
LocationChess.com (qualifiers, quarterfinals)
Bærum, Norway (semifinals & finals)
Dates28 April – 2 November 2019
Winning score13.5 points of 24
Websitewww.frchess.com
Champion
United States Wesley So
← 2018
2022 →
Magnus Carlsen finished in second place.
Credit: Lennart Ootes
Ian Nepomniachtchi playing against Wesley So.
Credit: Lennart Ootes
Ian Nepomniachtchi, while castling, lifted the rook before the king, which is not allowed.
Credit: Lennart Ootes

The FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019 (WFRCC) was the first world championship in Fischer random chess officially recognized by the international chess federation FIDE.[1] Previous unofficial championships had been held, with the most recent winner being Magnus Carlsen in 2018. The competition started on April 28, 2019, with the first qualifying tournaments, which took place online 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 in Bærum, Norway. The winner of the final was Wesley So, defeating Magnus Carlsen 13.5–2.5, to become the first FIDE world champion in Fischer random chess. Over the course of the competition, various time controls were applied, with longer games being weighted more heavily.[2]

Rounds

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

First qualifying round

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The first qualifying round was open to all interested chess players without a title and was played online via the chess server chess.com. Each of 32 groups played a Swiss-system tournament 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

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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

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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. 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 in standard chess. Nevertheless, some prominent players were knocked out, including Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Sergey Karjakin, Alexander Grischuk and Leinier Domínguez. The following 6 players qualified for the quarterfinals:

Name Federation FIDE rating
Ian Nepomniachtchi  Russia 2775
Alireza Firouzja  Iran 2685
Vidit Gujrathi  India 2703
Peter Svidler  Russia 2737
Vladimir Fedoseev  Russia 2681
Wesley So  United States 2763

Two more players were seeded directly into the quarterfinals: The runner-up in the World Chess Championship 2018 in standard chess, Fabiano Caruana, and the runner-up in the unofficial Fischer Random world championship match 2018, Hikaru Nakamura.

Quarterfinals

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The quarterfinals were played online[3] from October 4 to 6 2019. They can be viewed on Chess.com.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

The first day saw matches between pairs of players. On the second day, the four losers played each other in pairs in a sort of repechage. 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. This way, a player who lost all the slow rapid games of a match could catch up by and only by winning all the remaining (fast rapid & blitz) games to decide the match by Armageddon.

Day 1

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Russia Peter Svidler 5 7 United States Fabiano Caruana
United States Wesley So 3 9 United States Hikaru Nakamura
Russia Vladimir Fedoseev 8 4 India Vidit Gujrathi
Iran Alireza Firouzja 6 7 Russia Ian Nepomniachtchi
  • On drawn portions: The only match whose slow rapid portion was not drawn was the match between Caruana and Svidler. Nakamura and Fedoseev won the fast rapid portions of their matches.
  • On extra games: Both the matches between So and Nakamura and between Fedoseev and Gujrathi were already decided after the fourth game with 3:7 points in favour of, respectively, Nakamura and Fedoseev. Nevertheless, the four players decided to play the remaining two games, even though they were no longer relevant for the qualification for the semifinals.

Day 2 (repechage)

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India Vidit Gujrathi Iran Alireza Firouzja
United States Wesley So Russia Peter Svidler
  • On drawn portions: Both of the slow rapid portions were drawn. Firouzja won the fast rapid portion of his match.
  • On extra games: The match between Gujrathi and Firouzja was also already decided after the fifth game with 6½:4½ points in favour of Firouzja. Nevertheless, the two players decided to play the remaining one game, even though it was no longer relevant for the qualification for the semifinals.

Day 3

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Russia Vladimir Fedoseev 5 7 United States Wesley So
United States Hikaru Nakamura United States Fabiano Caruana
Russia Ian Nepomniachtchi Iran Alireza Firouzja
  • On drawn portions: None of the slow rapid portions were drawn.
  • On extra games: 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.[10]

Semifinals and finals

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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, Magnus Carlsen. The schedule was as follows:

Date Event Format
October 27 semifinals, games 1 and 2 45 min for 40 moves + 15 min for the rest, 3 points for a win
October 28 semifinals, games 3 and 4
October 29 semifinals, games 5 to 8 15 min + 2 s increment, 2 points for a win
semifinals, games 9 to 12 3 min + 2 s increment, 1 point for a win
semifinals, tiebreak (armageddon, if needed) 5 min for white, 4 min for black, white has to win, black wins by drawing or winning
October 30 rest day
October 31 finals / match for third place, games 1 and 2 45 min for 40 moves + 15 min for the rest, 3 points for a win
November 1 finals / match for third place, games 3 and 4
November 2 finals / match for third place, games 5 to 8 15 min + 2 s increment, 2 points for a win
finals / match for third place, games 9 to 12 3 min + 2 s increment, 1 point for a win
finals / match for third place, tiebreak (if needed) 5 min for white, 4 min for black, white has to win

Unlike the quarterfinals, none of the matches were tied in the slow rapid portions. But as with the quarterfinals, every match in the semifinals & finals was won by the winner of the slow rapid portion.

Semifinals

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Player 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 TB Total
Slow rapid Fast rapid Blitz Armageddon
3 points per game 2 points per game 1 point per game 1 point per game
Norway Magnus Carlsen 0 3 3 1 2 0 2 Not
required
12½
United States Fabiano Caruana 3 0 0 1 0 2 0
Russia Ian Nepomniachtchi 0 0 1 0 1 Not
required
5
United States Wesley So 3 3 1 2 1 13
Starting position[11] 744 744 357 357 67 67 642 642

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.[12]

Finals and third-place match

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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.

Player 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 TB Total
Slow rapid Fast rapid Blitz Armageddon
3 points per game 2 points per game 1 point per game 1 point per game
Norway Magnus Carlsen 0 0 0 1 0 Not
required
United States Wesley So 3 3 3 1 2 13½
Russia Ian Nepomniachtchi 0 3 3 2 1 2 Not
required
12½
United States Fabiano Caruana 3 0 0 0 1 0
Starting position[11] 294 294 729 729 253 253 381

So won the championship, defeating Carlsen 13½-2½. Leonard Barden observed that the score unadjusted for time controls would be 5-1 and compared this "crushing" defeat to Bobby Fischer's double 6-0 victories in the 1971 Candidates.[13] Barden also reported that Carlsen was "deeply ashamed".[13]

Nepomniachtchi beat Caruana 12½-5½ to take third place.[14] Thus, Nepomniachtchi actually scored higher than Carlsen both in the slow rapid (10.5/24 vs 9/24) and in the fast rapid portions (7/12 vs 6/12) and thus overall (17.5/36 vs 15/36).

References

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  1. ^ "The World Fischer Random Chess Championship is now officially recognized by FIDE". FIDE. Retrieved 2019-10-28.
  2. ^ "Regulations for the 2019 FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-10-28.
  3. ^ World Fischer Random Chess Championship 2019, The Week in Chess 1300, 7 October 2019
  4. ^ "PSvidler's Games". chess.com.
  5. ^ "viditchess's Games (vs Bigfish1995)". chess.com.
  6. ^ "viditchess's Games (vs Firouzja2003)". chess.com.
  7. ^ "lachesisQ's Games". chess.com.
  8. ^ "GMWSO's Games". chess.com.
  9. ^ "Hikaru's Games". chess.com.
  10. ^ "Caruana, So, Nepomniachtchi Headed To World Fischer Random Semifinals". chess.com. 6 October 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-28.
  11. ^ a b See Fischer Random Chess numbering scheme
  12. ^ "Today: Carlsen To Play So For Fischer Random World Championship". chess.com. 29 October 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
  13. ^ a b Barden, Leonard (8 November 2019), "Chess: Carlsen 'deeply ashamed' of heavy loss to So in World Random final", The Guardian
  14. ^ "Wesley So Wins Fischer Random World Championship". chess.com. 2 November 2019. Retrieved 2019-11-11.
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