Champions Chess Tour 2021
The Champions Chess Tour 2021, known for sponsorship reasons as the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, was a 10-month long series of 10 online chess tournaments featuring the world's top players, playing for a prize money pool of US$1.5 million. The tournament games were held on chess24.com and broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, chess24.com itself, and the tour's official website. The tour started on November 22, 2020, and lasted until October 4, 2021. The tournaments were not rated by FIDE.
Format
There are 10 total tournaments in the tour: 6 labelled as Regular, 3 labelled as Major, and 1 Final. Each takes place towards the end of a month over the course of 9 days.Qualification
According to the tour regulations, there are 16 spots in a Regular tournament, 12 spots in a Major tournament, and 10 spots in the Final tournament. However, after the first Major tournament, it was concluded that 8 out of 12 players advancing to the knockout round rewarded cautious play, and the remaining Major tournaments were conducted with 16 players.For each of the Regular tournaments except for the first one, 8 of the 16 spots are given to the current top 8 players in the Tour Rankings. The rest of the spots are given out via wild cards, invitations, or popular votes. The 16 spots for the first tournament of the tour are chosen via the decision of the event organizers.
For the Major tournaments, 8 of the spots are also given to the current top 8 players in the Tour Rankings. The winner of the preceding Regular tournament is also given a spot, if he or she is not already in the top 8. The rest of the spots are given via wild cards.
For the Final tournament, 8 of the 10 spots are given first to the winners of the 3 Major tournaments, then down the standings of the Tour Rankings. The final 2 spots are given to the best-performing "Tour Ambassadors."
Time controls
Three different time controls are used in the tour:- In rapid games, each player has 15 minutes, plus a 10-second increment for each move.
- In blitz games, each player has 5 minutes, plus a 3-second increment for each move.
- In Armageddon games, white has 5 minutes, black has 4 minutes, there is no increment, and black wins the tie in case of a draw.
Tournament formats
Regular
The Regular tournaments consist of a preliminary round and 3 knockout rounds. In the preliminary round, the 16 players participate in a round-robin spanning 3 days, with each player playing the other players for 1 rapid game, for a total of 120 games. The top 8 players with the most points advance to the next round and are seeded for the purposes of making the bracket based on their points. In the event that 2 or more players are tied with points, the following system is used:- Points won in matches involving the tied players
- Number of wins
- Sonneborn–Berger score
- Koya score
Major
The Major tournaments operate the same way as the Regular tournaments. It is still the top 8 players who qualify for the knockout rounds.Final
The Final only consists of one round-robin for the 10 players, spanning 9 days. Each matchup will comprise 4 rapid games. If the 4 points are split among the two players, then 2 blitz games are played, followed by Armageddon if the blitz games are split. 3 points are awarded for an outright win, 2 points are awarded for a tiebreak win, and 1 point is awarded for a tiebreak loss.In addition to these points, the players start off with bonus points based on their Tour rankings coming into the Final. The player with the fewest Tour points gets 0 bonus points, and the other players are awarded half a point for every full 10 points they have more than the player with the least number. For example, if Player A has the fewest Tour points with 86, a Player B with 143 Tour points will be awarded 2.5 points, since they exceed Player A's total by 57.
The player with the greatest sum of bonus points and points won in the Final will be crowned the Tour Champion.
Tour points
For Regular tournaments, points are awarded as follows.| Finish | Points |
| Winner | 40 |
| Runner-up | 25 |
| 3rd place | 15 |
| 4th place | 10 |
In other words, a player receives 10 points for winning in the quarterfinals, 15 points for winning in the semifinals, 15 points for winning the final and 5 points for winning the match for third place. The regulations were present for most of the tournament, excluding the Skilling Open tournament; in that tournament of the tour, the runner-up was awarded 20 points and the two remaining semi-finalists were each awarded 10 points, without a match for 3rd place.
Additional points are also awarded to finishes in the preliminary round:
| Finish | Points |
| 1st | 10 |
| 2nd | 8 |
| 3rd | 6 |
| 4th | 5 |
| 5th | 4 |
| 6th | 3 |
| 7th | 2 |
| 8th | 1 |
| 9th–16th | 0 |
The points system for Major tournaments is the same, but all values are doubled.
In the event that two players are tied for the same number of Tour points, the following tiebreak system will be used:
- Number of tournament wins
- Number of tournament appearances
- Number of final appearances
- Number of semi-final appearances
- Number of quarter-final appearances
Prize money
Regular
The total prize pool for a Regular tournament is $100,000. The money is split as follows:| Finish | Prize |
| Winner | $30,000 |
| Runner-up | $15,000 |
| 3rd place | $8,500 |
| 4th place | $6,500 |
| Quarterfinalist | $5,000 |
| Preliminary | $2,500 |
The regulations were changed after the Skilling Open tournament; in this first tournament of the tour, the players who lost in the semifinals each received $7,500, without a match for 3rd place.
Major
The total prize pool for a Major tournament is $200,000. The money is split as follows:| Finish | Prize |
| Winner | $60,000 |
| Runner-up | $40,000 |
| 3rd place | $25,000 |
| 4th place | $15,000 |
| Quarterfinalist | $10,000 |
| Preliminary | $5,000 |
Final
The prize pool for the final is $300,000, which is split as follows:| Finish | Prize |
| 1st | $100,000 |
| 2nd | $60,000 |
| 3rd | $40,000 |
| 4th | $30,000 |
| 5th | $20,000 |
| 6th | $15,000 |
| 7th | $12,500 |
| 8th | $10,000 |
| 9th | $7,500 |
| 10th | $5,000 |
Results
Tour rankings
The column labelled "Wins" indicates the number of tournament wins.The column labelled "Apps" indicates the number of tournament appearances.
The winners of the Major tournaments are invited to the Final tournament, as are the 5 players with the highest tour ranking among the remaining players. Two additional players are invited as wild cards. As the winners of the Major tournaments are guaranteed a place in the Final. An asterisk denotes a Major.
| Pos | Name | Wins | Apps | Skilling Open | Airthings Masters* | Opera Euro Rapid | Magnus Carlsen Invitational* | New In Chess Classic | FTX Crypto Cup* | Goldmoney Asian Rapid | Chessable Masters | Aimchess US Rapid | Total | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 |  TournamentsSkilling OpenThe results of the preliminary round were as follows.
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