Praggnanandhaa set to clash with Carlsen and world's best at Airthings Masters
Praggnanandhaa is quite familar with Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Last year, he earned his way into the New in Chess Classic by winning the Polgar Challenge. In this season, Pragg once again earned his way into the entire Tour as a regular participant by winning the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour 2021. Andrey Esipenko, Hans Niemann, Vincent Keymer, World Rapid champions - Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Alexandra Kosteniuk will make their Tour debut. They will fight against the returning players - Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Liem Quang Le, Vladislav Artemiev and Eric Hansen. Airthings Masters Round 1 starts tonight at 10:30 p.m. IST. Photo: chess24
Airthings Masters is the first event of Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022
Airthings Masters is the first tournament of Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 season. It features the world champion Magnus Carlsen along with World Rapid Open and Women champion - Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Alexandra Kosteniuk respectively. Praggnanandhaa will be a regular in this season as he earned his spot by winning the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour last year.
Pairings and Schedule
The Airthings Masters starts on Saturday February 19th and will conclude on Saturday February 26th. This time there will be a 4-day preliminary round-robin stage of rapid chess (15+10), before the top 8 players advance to the knockout stage. The Quarterfinals and Semifinals match is played in one day with four rapid games each day. Only Finals will last two days consisting of two matches with four Rapid games each. If the match score is tied, the players will then play two 5+3 blitz games followed by, if needed - Armageddon.
All games will start from 10:30 p.m. IST between 19th and 26th February 2022.
Airthings Masters Participants
Andrey Esipenko, Hans Niemann, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Vincent Keymer are the debutants of the season. They will be joined by Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Liem Quang Le, Vladislav Artemiev, Praggnanandhaa R and Eric Hansen.
Pairings
All pairings can be found here. Praggnanandhaa will face Magnus Carlsen in Round 8 on Monday 21st February 2022 at 1:30 a.m. IST.
Prizes
The total prize fund of the Tour is $1,600,000. The prize fund for Airthings Masters is $150,000. The winner will get $25000. In the Preliminaries, money prizes are awarded according to each game’s result following the format’s 3-1-0 system. Points shall be worth $250 each, and thus awarded as $750 for a win, $250 for a draw (to each player) and $0 for a loss. In case of draw, where the remaining $250 for the winner was not distributed, this will be added to the Season Bonus Prize Fund (up to $30,000 bonus per event) which will be distributed at the end of the season to players based on various performance awards to be announced by the Organizer before the first event. For the Knockouts, a prize fund of $60,000 will be distributed as follows
Tour Standings
The Tour Standings are determined by the sum of the prizes earned by each player throughout the season. If two or more players have the same sum of prizes at any stage, the tie shall be resolved according to the following criteria:
1.Number of tournament wins (more is better)
2.Number of events played (less is better)
3.Number of appearances in a final (more is better)
4.Number of appearances in a semi-final (more is better)
5.Number of appearances in a quarter-final (more is better)
If the tie affects qualification for a Tour event, a play-off shall be held between all tied players. The format will be determined in due time, depending on the number of players and the Tour schedule. The Organizer retains the right to forego such play-offs. In that case, ties will be resolved by the criteria above. The Season Bonus Prize Fund will not count towards the Tour Standings.
Time Control
• Rapid - 15 minutes per game + 10-second increment.
• Blitz - 5 minutes per game + 3-second increment.
• Armageddon - White has 5 minutes to Black’s 4, with no increments. If the game is drawn Black wins the match.
No draw offers/agreements are allowed before both sides have completed their 40th move, except in cases prescribed by the Laws of Chess.
What are the participants up to lately?
Let's take a look at what the participants have tweeted about their excitement for the event.
