Santa Clara International Chess Meeting

The Intel Santa Clara International Chess Meeting is an annually held elite chess tournament traditionally held in winter. Santa Clara is an invite-only event usually played in a single-elimination format. However it took on a double round-robin format from 2000 to 2004. It is one of the strongest chess tournaments in the world and was first held in 1994.
The title sponsor is Intel.
== Format ==
The tournament was initially held as a standard single-elimination tournament from 1994 to 1999. In 2000, the format was changed to a double round-robin tournament with the winner of the previous tournament being seeded into a best-of-5 final to challenge for the title. This format was used until 2005 when it was changed back to a single-elimination tournament with the winner of the previous tournament being seeded into the quarterfinals or semi-finals with a best-of-8 final. With the exception of the 2011 and 2012 tournaments when the format for the finals was changed to first-to-3½-wins and first-to-4-wins-with-draws-not-counted respectively, this format has been used ever since.
== Tournament history ==
* 1994 – ESP Alexei Shirov
* 1995 – UKR Vassily Ivanchuk
* 1996 – RUS Anatoly Karpov
* 1997 – RUS Vladimir Kramnik
* 1998 – IND Viswanathan Anand
* 1999 – RUS Alexander Morozevich
* 2000 – ENG Michael Adams
* 2001 – HUN Peter Leko
* 2002 – RUS Garry Kasparov
* 2003 – RUS Garry Kasparov
* 2004 – IND Viswanathan Anand
* 2005 – RUS Vladimir Kramnik
* 2006 – IND Viswanathan Anand
* 2007 – BUL Veselin Topalov
* 2008 – RUS Alexander Morozevich
* 2009 – IND Viswanathan Anand
* 2010 – RUS Vladimir Kramnik
* 2011 – IND Viswanathan Anand
* 2012 – IND Viswanathan Anand
* 2013 – ARM Levon Aronian
* 2014 – RUS Alexander Grischuk
* 2015 – NOR Magnus Carlsen
* 2016 – USA Fabiano Caruana
* 2017 – RUS Sergey Karjakin
* 2018 – AZE Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
* 2019 – CHN Ding Liren
* 2021 – Ian Nepomniachtchi