Grenke Chess Festival


The Grenke Chess Festival is an annual chess event held in the German cities of Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden and sponsored by Grenke AG. The Grenke Chess Classic was a strong closed tournament first held in 2013, which featured many of the world's top players. Since 2016, an Open tournament has been held concurrently, with the winner qualifying for the subsequent Classic tournament. In 2020, the Festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It returned in 2024 after a five-year hiatus, with the Classic tournament featuring a new rapid time control (45+10). In 2025, the Classic tournament was discontinued, and a new Grenke [Freestyle Chess Open] was announced in partnership with the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
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Editions

2013

Classic

Six players participated in the first edition of Grenke Chess. The winner was Viswanathan Anand ahead of Fabiano Caruana; they scored 6.5 and 6 out of 10, respectively.

2014

Classic

Arkadij Naiditsch, the highest-rated German chess player, won the 2014 edition of Grenke Chess Classic ahead of David Baramidze. This edition was not a supertournament, but rather a national competition; all eight participants were German. It was a single Round-robin tournament, and two spots were provided for the players to win entry into the next edition of 2015.

2015

Classic

The tournament was played between 2–9 February 2015. With an average rating of 2752, it was the strongest edition of Grenke Chess in its history. Among the participants were Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Viswanathan Anand and Levon Aronian. The winner was Magnus Carlsen, who eventually won a five-game tiebreak with Arkadij Naiditsch with a score of 3–2.

2016

Open

The 2016 open tournament was won by Matthias Blübaum with a score of 7½/9. Blübaum thus qualified for the Grenke Chess Classic 2017.

2017

Classic

The 2017 tournament took place from 15 to 22 April in Karlsruhe and Baden-Baden.
PlayerRating12345678TotalWinsTPR
1Levon Aronian>'Levon Aronian'|Armenia

Open

The 2017 open tournament was won by Nikita Vitiugov with a score of 7½/9. He thus qualified for the Grenke Chess Classic 2018.

2018

Classic

PlayerRating12345678910TotalWinsTPR
1Fabiano Caruana>'Fabiano Caruana'|United States

Open

The 2018 open tournament was won by 13-year-old IM Vincent Keymer with a score of 8/9, who also achieved a grandmaster norm in the process. He thus qualified for the Grenke Chess Classic 2019.

2019

Classic

PlayerRating12345678910TotalTPR
1'''Magnus Carlsen.png" />Magnus Carlsen|Norway

Open

The 2019 open tournament was won by Daniel Fridman with a score of 7½/9. Fridman thus qualified for the next edition of the Grenke Chess Classic, which wasn't held until 2024.

2020–2023

The 2020 edition was cancelled on short notice due to COVID-19 pandemic, which continued to prevent the event from being held in subsequent years until 2024.

2024

Classic

The tournament returned in 2024 after a five-year hiatus. For the first time, the tournament was played in a rapid time control (45+10) instead of the former classical time control. The format was also changed into a double round-robin tournament, followed by playoffs to decide places 1, 3 and 5. Magnus Carlsen won the tournament.
PlayerRating123456Total
1Magnus Carlsen.png" />Magnus Carlsen|NorwayCNone

Open

The 2024 open tournament was won by Hans Niemann with a score of 8/9. Niemann thus qualified for the Grenke Chess Classic 2025. Since that edition was cancelled following the announcement of a new Freestyle open, he was invited to the Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam to compensate for the lost invite. However, he later withdrew from that event due to personal reasons.

2025

Freestyle Open

The 2025 Freestyle open tournament was won by Magnus Carlsen with a perfect score of 9/9. Parham Maghsoodloo finished second on tiebreaks and qualified for the Las Vegas Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, since Carlsen had already qualified.

Open

The 2025 regular open tournament was won by 17-year-old IM Aswath S with a score of 8/9, who earned his maiden grandmaster norm in the process.