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The Tournament
Magistral Tournament "Ciudad de León"
The Magistral Tournament Ciudad de León, one of the great classics of the international circuit, celebrates this year its thirty-sixth 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 León player who is making his way towards the chess elite. All of them will compete in León in July 2023. The Magistral, which is a real chess festival, with multiple activities for children, fans and chess lovers from Spain and the world, will allow them to enjoy chess at the highest level for a week, as well as taking part in competitions for all levels, attending conferences, street activities, the magic of chess, online and on-site tournaments, and simultaneous exhibitions that will offer the public activities for all ages.
Players
The world chess players who will compete in León in 2025 are the following:
Schedule
Paralele Activities
The Magistral de León, has given the opportunity to have their baptism of fire at the highest level to today's very famous players: World Champion Carlsen and runner-up Karjakin , Peter Leko , Wei Yi , Jan Kristof Duda, the talented Leonese Jaime Santos, we have also seen in action in León the very young Indian world chess prodigy Praggnanandhaa and in the next edition his 14-year-old compatriot Nihal Sarin. In 2019 the Iranian Parham Maghsoodlioo, at that time U20 world champion, won, in 2021 the young female world champion Ju Wenjun played in León and in 2022 we saw here the Russian world star Andrey Esipenko, the five times world champion Anand and the winner of this edition, for the second time in a row, the GM of Israel, Boris Gelfand. In 2023 we witness the victory of the GM from Leon, Jaime Santos, winner for the first time of the Magistral, a historic milestone for the event.
In 2024, Jaime manages to reach the final once again after defeating Arjun Erigaisi, world number 3, in a thrilling semi-final and lost after a great fight with Amand.
The Magistral 2025 brings together once again in León several of the strongest and most attractive players in the world to fight for victory in one of the most prestigious tournaments on the international circuit. On this occasion, commemorating its 38th consecutive edition, we will have four players situated in the world elite, Anand, Le Quang Liem, ,Faustino Oro and Jaime Santos, which makes it the dean of the tournaments in Spain and one of the oldest in the world.
