London Chess Classic

The London Chess Classic is a chess festival held at the Olympia Conference Centre, West Kensington, London. The flagship event is a strong invitational tournament between some of the world's top grandmasters. A number of subsidiary events cover a wide range of chess activities, including tournaments suitable for norm and title seekers, junior events, amateur competitions, simultaneous exhibitions, coaching, and lectures.

In April 2015, the London Chess Classic (LCC) was named as one of the three events that would comprise the inaugural Grand Chess Tour. By linking with Norway Chess and the Sinquefield Cup, a prestigious grand-prix style 'tour' was created that would play host to nine of the world's elite players, as well as the wildcard nominee of each organizer. It was expected that future editions of the tour would be expanded to include other events that could meet the standard.

The LCC 2015 event will therefore feature the nine participating players of the 2015 Grand Chess Tour plus wildcard pick, Michael Adams.

The inaugural 2009 edition was advertised as "the highest level chess tournament in London for 25 years", referring to the Phillips & Drew Kings tournament held in 1984. It was held during the same time as the Chess World Cup 2009.

The field of eight grandmasters comprised the top four English players, and four international players, with top billing going to the former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, plus the future World Champion and then-current number one in the live world rankings, Magnus Carlsen. The tournament was FIDE Category 18, and had a prize fund of 100,000 Euros including daily best game prizes and a 10,000 Euro brilliancy prize for the game voted the best of the tournament. The games were broadcast live at a number of sites including Playchess and the Internet Chess Club (with live expert commentary provided by Chess.FM).

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