2019 Champions Showdown, St. Louis

September was one of the best months ever for chess960. On top of the latest action in the FWFRCC (that stands for 'FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship', as in my previous post Phase Three of FWFRCC Completed), we had the 2019 Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX (uschesschamps.com). What's 'Chess 9LX'? It's '9' plus the Roman numerals 'LX', i.e. '60', but the less said about that the better.

This is the fifth chess960 event from the Saint Louis Chess Club that I've covered on this blog. The others were:-

• 2012-01-07: Kings and Queens on Chess960
• 2014-09-13: Chess960 'Showdown' in St.Louis
• 2017-11-18: Chess960 Showdown (played in November 2015)
• 2018-09-22: Champions Showdown, St. Louis

As for a summary of the 2019 event, here's a screen snapshot from the official 'Chess 9LX' site. The selection of the start positions followed the same procedure as for the 2018 event, which I quoted in the corresponding post.

The chess news sites covered the 2019 event in depth, although I imagine it was more for Kasparov's participation than for chess960. Here's the coverage by Chess24.com:-

• 2019-09-02: Kasparov returns to face Caruana in Chess960
• 2019-09-03: Chess 9LX, Day 1: Kasparov suffers heavy blow
• 2019-09-04: Chess 9LX, Day 2: Kasparov gets to have some fun
• 2019-09-05: Chess 9LX, Day 3: Caruana beats Kasparov
• 2019-09-06: Chess 9LX, Day 4: Nakamura completes comeback

In the first decade of the century, Mainz was the geographical center of chess960. In the second decade, it's been St. Louis. After the third decade starts in a few months, will the focus expand to new localities?

Phase Three of FWFRCC Completed

Last month I covered the knockout phase of the 'FIDE World Fischer Random Chess Championship' (FWFRCC) in two posts:-

• 2019-08-17: Phase Three of FWFRCC Underway
• 2019-08-24: Phase Three of FWFRCC Compressed

The posts included the Chess.com reports on the first three of the six individual knockout tournaments. Chess.com subsequently issued reports on the last three of the tournaments :-

• 2019-08-24: Grischuk, Svidler Star In Sunday's [FWFRCC] Qualifier
• 2019-08-27: Svidler Qualifies For [FWFRCC]
• 2019-08-30: So, Dominguez Headline Weekend's [FWFRCC] Qualifiers
• 2019-09-01: Fedoseev Wins, Favorites Fall In Penultimate [FWFRCC] Qualifier
• 2019-09-01: Top Seed So Wins Final [FWFRCC] Knockout Qualifier

The three reports on the winners were filed by GM Jonathan Tisdall. Old timers might remember that then-IM Tisdall reported for the USCF's Chess Life on the Kasparov - Karpov World Championship clashes of the 1980s.

What happens next for the six knockout winners? The first event in the following chart, 'Quarterfinals Stage 1', says, 'Six winners of the knockout qualifiers join Nakamura and Caruana'.

Schedule

GM Tisdall also prepared a preview of the remaining events:-

• 2019-09-18: [FWFRCC] Tickets Now Available (chess.com)

The report starts with a plug for the Norwegian sponsors of the series of events:-

The time has come to book your ticket to watch the live stages of the FIDE World Fischer Random Championship. The venue for the semifinals and final will be Norway's Henie Onstad Art Center, located just outside Oslo. The city previously hosted the remarkably successful pilot event, the unofficial title match between Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen in 2018.

It continues with details for the three days of quarterfinal matches. The three top players from the quarterfinals will join Magnus Carlsen in the four-player semifinal.