Magnus Carlsen’s Champions Tour — Asian Rapid

Weeks after a gathering of the world’s best chess players kept a watchful eye on bitcoin rates in addition to board positions, the Goldmoney Asian Rapid offers the next pit-stop of the Magnus Carlsen-motored big-money online tournament enterprise – the Meltwater Champions Tour. The 16-player event will form the seventh leg of the Tour and will run from June 26-July 4.

The cast

In addition to Carlsen, who earned the unlikely distinction of winning the world’s first elite-level bitcoin chess event last month, the Asian Rapid will have, among others, Wesley So, Ding Liren, Anish Giri, Alireza Firouzja and Hou Yifan, currently the world’s strongest female chess player, in its ranks. It will also feature four Indian GMs – Adhiban Baskaran, Vidit Gujrathi, Gukesh D and Arjun Erigaisi.

Tournament format

The Goldmoney Asian Rapid is one among the six regular tournaments that comprise the Play Magnus Group-run Meltwater Champions Tour. This is not a FIDE-rated Tour. Three Majors are interspersed in the line-up of events and the Tour culminates in a final in September. The Asian Rapid will have all 16 players participate in a three-day round robin with the top-eight players advancing to the knockout round. In the knockout round, each pairing plays two matches of four rapid games. In the instance of a drawn result, two blitz games will be played and if the scores are still split, the winner will be determined via an Armageddon game.

What’s at stake?

Unlike the Crypto Cup which offered $100,000 in crypto bonus (which fluctuated to $60,000 by the tournament end) in the overall $320,000 winnings, the Asian Rapid which marks the seventh leg of the series, will have a straight up $100,000 prize pot. The primary partner, Goldmoney, a public corporation which describes itself as a platform where people can “purchase physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium bullion online”, will only be appending its name to the tournament. Tour points from this event will count towards a spot in the 10-player final in September.

Where can we watch it?

ESPN.in will be streaming the event.

The full line-up

Magnus Carslen, Wesley So, Alireza Firouzja, Ding Liren, Hou Yifan, Levon Aronian, Anish Giri, Adhiban Basakaran, Vidit Gujrathi, Gukesh D, Arjun Erigaisi, Daniil Dubov, Peter Svidler, Vladimir Artemiev, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Saleh Salem.