Speed Chess Championship 2018 | Official Information
The 2018 Chess.com Speed Chess Championship will feature 16 of the world's best chess players in an innovative eSports bracket tournament and a guaranteed prize pool of $55,000.
Congratulations to Hikaru Nakamura, the 2018 Speed Chess Champion.
You can find important information on the event below.
- Broadcast and streaming
- Bracket
- Matchups and pairings
- Fantasy prediction contest
- SmarterChess predictions
- Schedule
- Results
- Event prizes
- Detailed format
- List of players
- Rules
- Promotional video trailer
- 2017 event
All 2018 Speed Chess Championship matches will be broadcast live with full chess-master commentary on Chess.com/TV and Twitch.tv/Chess.
Click the bracket for a larger image.
(See results below for completed matches.)
Round 1
- Caruana vs Aronian:
- Nakamura vs Hou Yifan:
- Wesley So vs Wei Yi:
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave vs Leinier Dominguez Perez:
- Nepomniachtchi vs Grischuk:
- Andriasyan vs Vidit Gujrathi:
- Karjakin vs Duda:
- Giri vs Mamedyarov:
Fill out your fantasy chess bracket and you could win valuable Chess.com membership prizes. Entries are accepted through July 23.
The Chess.com SmarterChess statistical model produces the following round-by-round odds, based on past performance in Chess.com featured events. (The odds are a snapshot before round one.)
Click on the image for a larger version.
2018 Speed Chess Championship schedule:
The following dates are tentatively scheduled for Speed Chess Championship events:
Qualifiers and Seeding
- Event 1 (invitational qualifier)
- Event 2 (open qualifier)
- Bracket release — Wednesday, July 11 (ratings close at the end of the July 10 qualifier) — Seeding 1-16 by Chess.com blitz rating and release of bracket
Round 1
See the matchups/pairings above.
Round 2: Quarterfinals
- Grischuk vs Duda:
- Aronian vs Giri:
- So vs Vidit Gujrathi:
- Vachier-Lagrave vs Nakamura:
Round 3: Semifinals
- Event 15 (Round 3, Match 1)
- Event 16 (Round 3, Match 2)
Round 4: Finals
- Event 17 (Round 4, SCC CHAMPIONSHIP)
Prizes by round:
- Qualifiers -- $5,000
- Round 1 -- $16,000
- Round 2 -- $12,000
- Round 3 -- $12,000
- Round 4 -- $10,000
Prize breakdown:
Invitational qualifier: $1,500 prize pool.
1. Qualify for SCC + $500
2. $400
3-4. $250 each
Best game prize: $100
Open qualifier: $3,500 prize pool.
1. Qualify for SCC + $1,000
2. $1,000
3. $500
4. $400
5. $300
6. $200
7. $100
Round 1: 16 players, 8 matches, $16,000 prize pool.
- Winner: $1,000 and advance to round 2
- $1,000 split by win percentage
- Total prizes per match: $2,000
Round 2: 8 players, 4 matches, $12,000 prize pool.
- Winner: $1,500 and advance to round 3
- $1,500 split by win percentage
- Total prizes per match: $3,000
Round 3: 4 players, 2 matches, $12,000 prize pool
- Winner: $3,000
- $3,000 split by win percentage
- Total prizes per match: $6,000
Round 4: 2 players, 1 match, $10,000 prize pool
- Winner: $5,000
- $5,000 split by win percentage
- Total prizes per match: $10,000
- Invitational knockout qualifier:
Leinier Dominguez qualifies for the main bracket. Read the full news report here.
- Open qualifier:
Zaven Andriasyan qualifies for the main bracket. Read the full news report here.
Result: Aronian 20.5, Caruana 6.5
Prizes: Aronian $1,759.26 + advance to next round, Caruana: $240.74
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Nakamura 27.5, Hou Yifan 2.5
Prizes: Nakamura: $1,981.51 + advance to next round, Hou Yifan: $148.18. The Twitch community donated $129.29 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: So 18.5, Wei Yi 9.5
Prizes: So: $1690.21 + advance to next round, Wei Yi: $368.79. The Twitch community donated $59 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Vachier-Lagrave 19, Dominguez 12
Prizes: Vachier-Lagrave: $1,646.90 + advance to next round, Dominiguez: $421.10. The Twitch community donated $68 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Grischuk 17.5, Nepomniachtchi 11.5
Prizes: Grischuk $1,666.95 + advance to next round, Nepomniachtchi: $460.05. The Twitch community donated $127 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Vidit 16, Andriasyan 9
Prizes: Vidit $1,747.50 + advance to next round, Andriasyan: $467.50. The Twitch community donated $215 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Duda 13, Karjakin 11
Prizes: Duda $1,585.42 + advance to next round, Karjakin: $$502.08. The Twitch community donated $87.50 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Giri 17, Mamedyarov 15
Prizes: Giri $1,607.00 + advance to next round, Mamedyarov $544.50. The Twitch community donated $151.50 that was added to the original $2,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Duda 14, Grischuk 13
Prizes: Duda $2,356.28 + advance to next round, Grischuk $800.72. The Twitch community donated $157 that was added to the original $3,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Aronian 18, Giri 11
Prizes: Aronian $2,459.70 + advance to next round, Giri: $597.64. The Twitch community donated $57.34 that was added to the original $3,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: So 16.5, Gujarathi 10.5
Prizes: So $2,429.42 + advance to next round, Gujarathi: $596.08. The Twitch community donated $25.50 that was added to the original $3,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Nakamura 21.5, MVL 13.5
Prizes: Nakamura $2,485.68 + advance to next round, MVL: $642.82. The Twitch community donated $128.50 that was added to the original $3,000 prize pool.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Semifinals
Result: So 20, Duda 7
Prizes: So $5,222.22 plus advances to the finals, Duda $777.78.
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Nakamura 17, Aronian 12
Prizes: Nakamura $4,758.62 plus advances to the finals, Aronian $1,241.38
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap
Result: Nakamura 15.5, So 12.5
Prizes: Nakamura $7,767.86, So $2,232.14
Watch: full match video replay
Read: news recap coming soon
Qualifiers
Two spots will be determined by two qualifier events.
Invitational qualifier
- Four-player invitational knockout tournament. Three matches to determine the SCC qualifier.
- The four invited players are Georg Meier, Eric Hansen, Leinier Dominguez, and Jon Ludvig Hammer.
- The players will be seeded 1-4 on June 26 by their Chess.com blitz rating. Seed 1 will play seed 4, and seed 2 will play seed 3. The winners will play each other for the Speed Chess qualification.
- Each knockout match will be five games of 5/1, five games of 3/1 and 10 games of 1/1. The highest score moves on to the next round and the loser is eliminated.
- If the match is tied at the end of the 1/1 segment, the match will continue as sudden death until the first winning game.
Open qualifier
- Swiss tournament: 10 rounds, 3+1 blitz.
- Standard Chess.com tournament tiebreaks used only for the qualifier spot. No tiebreaks used for cash prizes; cash prizes split equally by point total.
- Must be titled and rated 2500 or more in Chess.com blitz to enter.
- Open to all who meet eligibility requirements, including those players invited to main bracket. If an invited player wins a qualifying spot, he gets the cash prize, and the qualification goes down to the next eligible finisher.
Main bracket
- Each 2018 Speed Chess Championship match will feature 90 minutes of 5/1 blitz, 60 minutes of 3/1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1/1 bullet chess.
- The bracket will feature the winners of the two qualifying spots and 14 invited players
- The bracket will be seeded 1-16 by Chess.com blitz ratings at the conclusion of the open qualifier.
- The main bracket will be a single-elimination knockout.
- The winner of each match advances to the next line in the bracket.
- If match is tied after the last 1+1 bullet game, a tiebreak of 4 additional 1+1 games is played as a mini-match.
- If match is still tied after the mini-match tiebreaker, a single armageddon game will be played: White 5+0, Black 3+0, Black gets draw odds. The player with the highest Chess.com blitz rating at the start of the Armageddon chooses his color.
The following chess players have confirmed their participation in the 2018 Speed Chess Championship main bracket:
- Fabiano Caruana — world number 2 at time of invitation.
- Shakhriyar Mamedyarov — world number 3 at time of invitation.
- Hikaru Nakamura — world number 10 at time of invitation.
- Wesley So — world number 8 at time of invitation.
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave — world number 6 at time of invitation.
- Ian Nepomniachtchi — world number 16 at time of invitation.
- Levon Aronian — world number 12 at time of invitation.
- Wei Yi — world number 22 at time of invitation.
- Anish Giri — world number 9 at time of invitation.
- Alexander Grischuk — world number 11 at time of invitation.
- Sergey Karjakin — world number 7 at time of invitation.
- Hou Yifan — women's world number 1 at time of invitation.
- Jan-Krzysztof Duda — world number 21 at time of invitation.
- Vidit Gujrathi — world number 31 at time of invitation.
Leinier Dominguez Perez — world number 21 at time of qualification.
- Zaven Andriasyan — world number 259 at time of qualification.
For the official rules of the 2018 Speed Chess Championship, please visit this article.
Information and results for the 2017 Speed Chess Championship can be found here.
