Chess960 @ Chess Classic Mainz

You can count the number of important chess960 tournaments played annually on the thumb of one hand; take your pick which hand. In a recent post -- Chess Classic Mainz 2008 (CCM8) -- I mentioned its 2008 edition. What about previous events?

If, like me, you've never paid much attention to Chess Classic Mainz (CCM), you probably don't know the difference between the FiNet Open, the Ordix Open, and the Livingston Championship. A mixture of traditional chess and chess960, the CCM events are hard to distinguish by name and their details change from one year to the next.

Fortunately, the CCM web site carries a complete history of the event going back to CCM1 in 2001. I created the following table to identify the chess960 events that have been held each year, along with their winners. The links in the first few columns go directly to CCM pages, while the last column points to coverage by two well known and reliable news sources.

	Matches	Opens	Computers	Simuls	ChessBase & TWIC
2 0 0 8	2. FiNet Chess960 Women's Rapid World Championship; Kosteniuk (1st), Zhukova, Cmilyte, Lahno	7. FiNet Open; Nakamura 1st	4. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC; Rybka, Shredder, Deep Sjeng, Naum		CB 2008 & TWIC 717
2 0 0 7	5. FiNet Chess960 Rapid World Championship; Aronian (1st), Anand, Bacrot, Kashimdzhanov	6. FiNet Open; Bologan 1st	3. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC; Shredder, Rybka, Jonny, Spike		CB 2007 & TWIC 667
2 0 0 6	Clerical Medical Chess960 World Championship; Aronian - Svidler, Women, Seniors, Juniors	5. FiNet Open; Bacrot 1st	2. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC; 21 programs	According to the navbar, Chess960 simul L. Aronian, but the page says nothing about it	CB 2006 & TWIC 615
2 0 0 5	FiNet Chess960 World Championship; Svidler - Almasi	4. FiNet Open; Aronian 1st	1. Livingston Chess960 Computer WCC; 19 Programs		CB 2005 & TWIC 562
2 0 0 4	Gerling Match; Chess960 World Championship; Svidler - Aronian	3. FiNet Open; Almasi 1st			CB 2004 & TWIC 509
2 0 0 3	The Final: Chess960 World Championship; Svidler - Leko	2. Chess960 Open; Aronian 1st		Playing Chess960 Simuls on 20 boards: Leko & Svidler	CB 2003 & TWIC 458
2 0 0 2		1. Chess960 Open; Svidler 1st			CB 2002 & TWIC 406
2 0 0 1	Fischer Random Chess; Leko - Adams				TWIC 347
***
2 0 0 0	Frankfurt Chess Classic 2000; Jussupow (Yusupov) - Fritz				TWIC 294
1 9 9 6	Fischer launches Fischerandom Chess at Buenos Aires				TWIC 088

The table should serve as a good starting point for a deeper look at the events.