The Grand Chess Tour, one of the top global circuits of international Chess tournaments where the world's best players are invited, concluded on August 29. The final event in this lengthy series was the Sinquefield Cup 2024, held by the Saint Louis Chess Club at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Missouri.
This $350,000 prize purse competition, known as the GCT's signature event, served as the final opportunity for players to earn points for the 2024 Grand Chess Tour. It featured nine full-tour players and one wildcard player in the form of reigning world champion Ding Liren from China.
At the end of around ten days of action in the strongest tournament on American soil, GM Alireza Firouzja emerged as the champion. The Frenchman finished on six points after securing a draw with Indian GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu in the final round, helping him edge home favorite Fabiano Caruana by half a point.
With this win, Alireza Firouzja took home $100,000 as winnings and etched his name in history as one of the five players to have won the Sinquefield Cup two or more times. This also meant he took his total winnings in the 2024 Grand Chess Tour to $323,750, almost a hundred thousand more than anyone else, thus giving him the title of champion of this circuit for the year.
The 21-year-old is now a two-time winner of the GCT, having also won it in 2022. He was quoted as saying after his win:
"It was a tiring journey, but I enjoyed every step. It's very important to have experience and know how to manage the tournament when you are in the lead to ensure you don't get crushed by this field. I am younger, but I have experience that helped me. The GCT is very difficult to win; it's a long tournament with the best players, and I'm thankful to win it two times."
Moving to viewership statistics, the Grand Chess Tour: Sinquefield Cup 2024 managed 12.8K Peak Viewers and 8.1K Average Viewers. It also hit 390K Hours Watched over an airtime of 48 hours, making it the third-most-watched event on the circuit this year and the fifth-most-watched one in series history.
Crucially, the entire circuit has proven to be a hit in 2024, with five of its ten most-watched tournaments coming this year. Moreover, the most popular event in the series' history came during the Grand Chess Tour: Superbet Poland Rapid & Blitz 2024, with half of the top ten on this leaderboard coming in 2024.
The participation of a stacked field has certainly helped in this cause, with the legendary Garry Kasparov, the former world champion and co-creator of the GCT, saying that 'this year’s tour was one of the strongest ever because all the top players competed in the various tournaments across the world.' Moreover, there were big-ticket wildcard players like Ding Liren and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, helping attract sizeable audiences across the five tournaments in the series.
The end of another season of the Grand Chess Tour also brought news that the 2025 circuit would be back with even more excitement and exceptional chess from the world's top players. Since it will be celebrating its 10th anniversary, a purse of over $1.5 million and the return of knockout finals for the top four players of the regular season were announced.
Chess continues to be in a healthy place after seeing a rebirth during the COVID-19 lockdown era. While it might not attract the same caliber of content creators or streamer events on a more regular basis, its players have taken it upon themselves to entertain audiences and fans worldwide. This has resulted in a healthy calendar packed with all manner of events with the best players on show, meaning viewership remains stable throughout the year.
