Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022

The Meltwater Chess Champions tour began in February! The tour is an online rapid chess tournament (Her League also uses a rapid online format) with a variety of participants from across the globe.

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BY HRTHA RAJIV - GREAT VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL - HL MEMBER & HN COLUMNIST

The second edition of the Meltwater Chess Champions tour began in February! The tour is an online rapid chess tournament, with a variety of participants from across the globe competing with World Champion Magnus Carlsen for first place in the tour. The tour contains nine events, with every two regular events being followed by a major event, for a total of six regular events and three major events. The major events have a larger prize fund and wins are worth more tour points. In addition, prizes at the end of the tour will be given to the players with the highest Fighting Chess Index score. The events that have occurred already are Airthings Masters, which was in February, The Charity Cup in March, the Oslo Esports Cup in April, and Chessable Masters which was underway at the time of publication.

The first event, Airthings Masters, was in February and it was a regular event to kick off the tour. The star-studded participants list included Magnus Carlsen, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Liem Quang Le, Pragganandhaa Rameshbabu, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Anish Giri, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren, Alexandra Kostenuik, Andrey Esipenko, Eric Hansen, Hans Niemann, Levon Aronian, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Vincent Keymer, and Vladislav Artemiev. Carlsen won the event, but the player who had the highest Fighting Chess Index( an index that ranks players based on how active and interesting their play is) in the event was Alexandra Kosteniuk. With a score of 73.92, Kosteniuk finished the tournament in last place. Esipenko was the only other player with a score above seventy, the player with the lowest Fighting Chess Index score was Hans Niemann with a score of 42.40. 

The Charity Cup which occurred in March was also a regular event, the last one before the first major tournament, the Oslo Esports Cup. The field consisted of David Anton, David Navara, Ding Liren, Eric Hansen, Gawain Jones, Hans Niemann, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Jordan Van Foreest, Ju Wenjun, Lei Tingjie, Liem Quang Le, Magnus Carlsen, Pentala Harikrishna,  Pragganandhaa Rameshbabu, Richard Rapport, and Vidit Gujrathi. This event was won by Magnus Carlsen as well, with Jan-Krzysztof Duda taking second, and Jorden Van Foreest coming in third. Carlsen has a fighting chess index score of 66.02, Duda has a score of 59.37, and Van Foreest has a score of 65.9.

The first major tournament was the Oslo Esports Cup, which unlike the regular events featured a field of only eight players, and a higher prize fund. The playing field was made up of Anish Giri, Eric Hansen,  Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Jordan Van Foreest, Liem Quang Le, Magnus Carlsen, Pragganandhaa Rameshbabu, and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. The tournament was won by Duda who defeated Liem Quang Le, who finished in second place. Both Carlsen and Pragganandhaa had twelve points, giving them third and fourth place respectively.

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