Introduction
The following list is not intended to be an exhaustive or definitive record of tournament chess, but takes as its foundation the collective opinion of chess experts and journalists (see references below) over the strongest tournaments in history.
Events that merit inclusion have been largely judged according to the strength (and relative strength in depth) of their participants. Other factors were taken into account, but have less influence; for example the quality of chess played, the closeness of the contest and the number of world top 10 and/or 'big reputation' players that took part. Inevitably, this introduces a degree of subjectivity, but the vast majority of tournaments in the list range from FIDE Category 10 to FIDE category 21.
The list comprises only regular open or invitational tournaments held at classical time controls with more than four players. Competitions such as World Championship finals, Zonals, Interzonals, Candidates Tournaments, City Championships and team competitions have been omitted for reasons of consistency and clarity. Of course, had they been included, then many of them, particularly the Soviet Championships, would have featured prominently.
The names of the tournament winners have been included next to the year and venue. Many of the tournaments have had books written about them (such as the Lake Hopatcong tournament book pictured) and whilst these will be mostly out of print, they are occasionally available at online auction sites, second-hand specialist book shops etc.
No attempt is made at comparing the relative strengths of tournaments in the list, as this is the subject of inconclusive debate amongst experts.
While events are listed in year order, they are not listed chronologically within the same year.
Read more about this topic: List Of Strong Chess Tournaments
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