The $350,000 (£250,000) Sinquefield Cup is one of the most iconic annual events in the chess calendar. Part of the Grand Chess Tour and named after the St Louis billionaire Rex Sinquefield, who has been the most generous individual sponsor in all chess history, it will be remembered for Fabiano Caruana’s 7/7 start in 2014 and his record 3098 tournament performance, for Ding Liren’s victory ahead of Magnus Carlsen in 2019, and, most of all, for the controversial 2022 Carlsen-Hans Niemann alleged cheating scandal.
For 2025, the organisers introduced a four-player Tour Final at São Paulo next month, and the jockeying for position for that dominated the action. At the end, Caruana and Wesley So (US) and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (India) tied with 5.5/9, ahead of Levon Aronian (US) 5, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland) and Sam Sevian (US) 4.5, the world champion Gukesh Dommaraju (India) 4, Alireza Firouzja (France) 3.5, Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) 2.5. The first three plus Vachier-Lagrave got the final qualification spots, but So missed out due to sub-par performances earlier in the Tour, while Gukesh again disappointed.
