The 2010s were an AMAZING decade for chess. Magnus Carlsen dominated the majority of the decade and made a strong case that he is the greatest chess player of all time. If he is as dominant in the 2020s as he was in the 2010s, there will be zero doubt that he is the greatest chess player of all time.



There were also more chess events than ever before. With the Grand Chess Tour, a two-year world championship cycle, and many other super-tournaments, knockouts, and more, the number of elite chess games and elite chess events was higher than ever before.

Online chess also came into it's own in the 2010s with huge events like the Speed Chess Championship and PRO Chess League attracting top-flight talent including Magnus Carlsen. Amateur players also played more chess than ever before thanks to online chess. Each day on Chess.com, over 3,000,000 chess games are played. When I was starting in chess, there weren't 3,000,000 recorded games in all of chess history!

Finally, it is also imperative to note the importance of neural network engines such as AlphaZero and Leela Chess Zero. Not only are these engines achieving new levels of strength, they have developed new and vigorous styles and strategies that have also made their way into human play.

All of these developments have lead to many brilliant tactical and strategic games. Here are my top 10 games of the 2010s (with video analysis further down in the blog) and dozens of honorable mentions! Despite this, I'm sure I missed many great games. What were your favorites?

Top 10 Games of the 2010s

Honorable Mentions

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#1: Aronian vs. Anand, 2013

#2: Wei Yi vs. Bruzon Bautista, 2015

#3: Alphazero vs. Stockfish, 2017

#4: Aronian vs. Kramnik, 2018

#5: Carlsen vs. Karjakin, 2013

#6: Gelfand vs. Nakamura, 2010

#7: Dubov vs. Giri, 2017