The Magistral Tournament Ciudad de León, one of the great classics of the international circuit, celebrates this year its thirty-fifth edition, with its traditional format of four players and a cup system with semi-finals and final that has been and is imitated in many top-level chess events. This system, which makes the competition much more interesting, avoids the famous and dreaded draws without a fight, one of the problems of competitive chess.
After the online editions of 2020 and 2021, imposed by the global pandemic of Covid-19, El Magistral aims to be face-to-face again and will feature four world-class players, including a player from León who is making his way towards the chess elite. All of them will compete in León in July 2022. The Magistral, which is a real chess festival, with multiple activities for children, amateurs and chess fans from Spain and the world, will allow them all to enjoy chess at the highest level for a week, as well as taking part in competitions for all levels, and they will be able to attend conferences, seminars and meetings on the role that chess plays in sport, culture and education.
El Magistral de León has given the opportunity to have their baptism of fire at the highest level to very famous players: the world champion Carlsen, the runner-up Karjakin, Peter Leko, Wei Yi, Jan Kristof Duda, the talented Jaime Santos from León, we have also seen here in action the very young Indian world chess prodigy Praggnanandhaa and in the following edition his 14 year old compatriot Ni- hal Sarin. In 2019 the Iranian Parham Maghsoodlloo, then World U20 Champion, won. In 2021 the young female World Champion Ju Wenjun played in León and in 2022 we will see the Russian world star Andrey Esipenko.
The Magistral 2022 brings together once again in León several of the strongest and most attractive players in the world to fight for triumph in one of the most prestigious tournaments on the international circuit. On this occasion commemorating its 35th consecutive edition, which makes it the oldest tournament in Spain and one of the oldest in the world, too.