Champions Chess Tour 2021

There are 16 spots in a Regular tournament, 12 spots in a Major tournament, and 10 spots in the Final tournament.[2]

For each of the Regular tournaments except for the 1st 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.[2] 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 12 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 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."[2]

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 (5 games per day), with each player playing the other players for 1 game, totaling 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:[2]

1. Points won in matches involving the tied players
2. Number of wins
3. Sonneborn–Berger score
4. Koya score

In the knockout rounds, each matchup consists of 2 matches of 4 rapid games on back-to-back days. If either player wins one match and at least draws the other, he advances on to the next round. If each player wins one match or both matches are drawn, immediately following the second match, the players play 2 blitz games. If the blitz games are split, the winner is determined via an Armageddon match (White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes, draw is a win for Black). The higher seed in each matchup picks the color for the first game, the first tiebreaker, and the Armageddon.[2]

The major tournament operates the same way as the Regular tournament, except that the round-robin consists of 12 players. However, it is still the top 8 players who qualify for the knockout rounds. Furthermore, there will be a match for 3rd place among the semifinal losers.

The Final only consists of one round-robin for the 10 players spanning 9 days (1 matchup per day). Each matchup will comprise 4 rapid games. If 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 (no tiebreak needed), 2 points are awarded for a tiebreak win, and 1 point is awarded for a tiebreak loss.[2]

In addition to these points, the players also start off with bonus points based on their Tour Rankings coming into the Final. The bonus points system works as follows: the player with the least amount of Tour points gets 0 bonus points, then the other players are awarded a half of a point for each 10 points they have more than the player with the least amount. For example, if Player A has the least amount of 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 (no rounding).[2]

The player with the greatest sum of bonus points and points won in the Final will be crowned the Tour Champion.

For Regular tournaments, points are awarded as follows.[2] For the Skilling Open, 20 points were awarded to the runner-up.[3]

Additional points are also awarded to finishes in the preliminary round:

The points system for Major tournaments is the same, but all values are doubled, and the semifinalist points are split into 30 for 3rd place and 20 for 4th place with the addition of the 3rd place match.[2]

In the event that two players are tied for the same amount of Tour points, the following tiebreak system will be used:[2]

1. Number of tournament wins
2. Number of tournament appearances (fewer is better)
3. Number of final appearances
4. Number of semi-final appearances
5. Number of quarter-final appearances

The administrators of the tournament also have the right to substitute a tiebreak match if the tie is for a qualification spot.

The total prize pool for a Regular tournament is $100,000. The money is split as follows:[2]

The total prize pool for a Major tournament is $200,000. The money is split as follows:[2]

The prize pool for the final is $300,000, which is split as follows:[2]

This will be updated at the end of each tournament.

Note: Top 6 are guaranteed a spot in the Final with Radjabov (a Major winner) in the Top 5, while players finishing 7th and 8th have an opportunity of automatically qualifying. Players outside the top 8 must count on being invited as a wild card. Asterisk denotes a Major.

Pos	Name	Apps	Skilling Open	Airthings Masters*	Opera Euro Rapid	Major 2*	Regular 3	Major 3*	Regular 4	Regular 5	Regular 6	Total
1	Teimour Radjabov	2	3	88								91
2	Wesley So	2	46	16								62
3	Levon Aronian	2	4	56								60
4	Magnus Carlsen	2	30	20								50
5	Maxime Vachier-Lagrave	2	2	34								36
6	Hikaru Nakamura	2	18	12								30
7	Ian Nepomniachtchi	2	15	10								25
8	Daniil Dubov	1		22								22
9	Anish Giri	2	1	0								1
t-10	Lê Quang Liêm	1	0									0
t-10	Sergey Karjakin	1	0									0
t-10	Jan-Krzysztof Duda	1	0									0
t-10	Ding Liren	1	0									0
t-10	Peter Svidler	1	0									0
t-10	Vidit Gujrathi	1	0									0
t-10	Alireza Firouzja	1	0									0
t-10	Alexander Grischuk	1		0								0
t-10	Pentala Harikrishna	1		0								0
19	David Antón Guijarro	2	0	0								0