The brand new Champions Chess Tour (CCT) season kicks off this month with the return of the Chessable Masters and a quicker format designed to ship much more thrilling motion.

Chess.com’s premier year-long occasion is now 4 foremost on-line tournaments, rising the depth main as much as the reside season-ending Tour Finals.

The general winner can be topped Tour Champion, the best annual honor conferred by the world’s largest chess platform.

New for 2024, every common season occasion has had its prize pool elevated from $235,000 final yr to $300,000—the biggest ever provided for CCT occasions outdoors the Tour Finals.

The pool for the Tour Finals stays $500,000 making the whole obtainable on the Tour a cool $1.7 million. Additionally new for 2024, the time management for each stage can be 10+2.

The primary occasion, the fifth version of the Chessable Masters, begins on January 31 and runs via February 7. All GMs are invited to enter and you’ll anticipate all the highest stars to be competing.

The CCT’s second occasion can be held on Might 8 to fifteen, the third from July 17 to 24, and the fourth from September 25 to October 2. The tip-of-season Tour Finals are set for December 14 to 21. Guide them in your calendars!

The CCT is now beginning its fifth season because it started life because the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour in 2020 and its second because it joined the Chess.com neighborhood.

GM Magnus Carlsen, the world number-one, has dominated to this point, profitable the inaugural occasion bearing his title and all three sequence because it was renamed the Champions Chess Tour.

In December, Carlsen defeated GM Wesley So 2.5-1.5 in Toronto to declare one more CCT title. Will 2024 be the yr he’s stopped?

The 4 $300,000 Occasions

The construction for the common season occasions stays largely the identical, retaining the thrilling three-division format utilizing double-elimination brackets that followers loved in 2023.

All GMs are eligible to compete within the Play-In and there’s a qualifying route for holders of different eligible titles, that are NM, CM, FM, IM, WCM, WFM, WIM, and WGM. Chess.com believes this CCT format creates an open, merit-based competitors the place each recreation issues.

Every common occasion beginning with the Chessable Masters will final eight days with the winner of Division I taking residence $30,000 and a spot within the Tour Finals. Day one of many match is the Play-In open to all GMs and winners of qualifying occasions.

The Play-In consists of a nine-round Swiss with the highest 69 transferring on to day two, the place the gamers plus 4 qualifiers from the earlier occasion compete once more to be positioned within the match’s three divisions. Days 3-8 see 56 gamers combat it out within the Knockout.

Divisions I (eight gamers), II (16 gamers) and III (32 gamers) function two or four-game matches utilizing the ten+2 time management, with bidding Armageddon tiebreaks if wanted.

Qualification For The $500,000 Tour Finals

The 4 occasions of the principle season lead in direction of Chess.com’s premier occasion: the reside eight-player end-of-season Tour Finals. Like final yr, gamers will earn prize cash and Tour factors within the Knockout levels of occasions which contribute to an total Tour leaderboard.

The winners of every occasion robotically qualify for the Tour Finals with the remaining spots taken from the leaderboard up to date after the top of every stage.

Three gamers have already pre-qualified for Division I from their performances in final yr’s AI Cup: Division I winner GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, runner-up Carlsen, and Division II winner GM Vladimir Fedoseev.

4 extra names have earned spots within the second spherical of Division Placement I, additionally primarily based on their ends in the 2023 AI Cup. They’re: GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi, Anish Giri, Vladislav Artemiev, and Sam Sevian.

GM Hikaru Nakamura is the Chessable Masters defending champion, whereas the earlier winners are GM Ding Liren (2022), So (2021) and Carlsen, who gained the inaugural occasion in 2020.

The brand new season of the CCT guarantees to write down the chess headlines in 2024. Be sure to’re watching when it begins on January 31.

The Chessable Masters 2024 begins on January 31 at 11 a.m. ET/17:00 CET. You could find extra info in our occasion information right here.

The Champions Chess Tour 2023 (CCT) is the most important on-line match of the yr. It’s composed of 5 occasions that span the whole yr and culminate in reside in-person finals. With one of the best gamers on the earth and a prize fund of $1,700,000, the CCT is Chess.com’s most necessary occasion.