18-year-old newly-crowned Indian Chess Champion Arjun Erigaisi tops the bill as the $100,000 MPL Indian Chess Tour starts on March 31st. The new $100,000 online Tour features four 16-player tournaments, with the winner of each event qualifying for the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. The four winners and four next highest scoring players on the Tour also qualify for a knockout final with a $10,000 top prize. 

The 16-player field for the first leg of the MPL Indian Chess Tour

The MPL Indian Chess Tour sees the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour partner with esports giant Mobile Premier League (MPL) to give more chances to India’s best chess players.

Namratha Swamy, MPL’s Country Head - India, said: 

We are excited to partner with the Play Magnus Group and launch the first regional version of the prestigious Meltwater Champions Chess Tour in India. At MPL, we have been consistently focusing on popularizing Chess and supporting the talent across the country through many initiatives. India is the first country to see expansion of such a world-class tournament and this goes on to prove that Indians’ interest in Chess has increased significantly during the past few years. This Chess Tour will provide a great opportunity for India’s Chess players to compete at a global level.

The pairings for Round 1 on Thursday, 31 March, starting 15:30 IST

16-year-old Praggnanandhaa Praggnanandhaa is a Meltwater Champions Chess Tour regular, while experienced Indian stars Harikrishna and Vidit have already played on this year’s Tour. Now more Indian chess talent will get a chance to shine over the course of five tournaments. 

Each of the four legs follows exactly the same format as the Preliminary stages of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour.

• 16 players play each other once at rapid chess over 4 days
• 15 minutes per player, with a 10-second increment after each move
• 3 points for a win and 1 for a draw
• A win is worth $150, a draw $50
• $18,000 total prize fund
• Each draw adds $50 to a Season Bonus Fund that starts at $3,000 

The winner of each event qualifies to play in a stage of the main Meltwater Champions Chess Tour and also for the $25,000 8-player knockout final of the MPL Indian Chess Tour. Apart from the leg winners, the remaining players in the final will be determined by overall MPL Indian Chess Tour standings.

The pairings are already out for the first event on the Tour, starting March 31st, which features a mix of established stars and rising young talent.

We’ll have commentary here on chess24 with GM Srinath Narayanan and NM Sahil Tickoo from 15:30 IST (06:00 ET, 12:00 CEST). 

It will also be possible to follow all the MPL Indian Chess Tour action in the MPL App and on MPL’s YouTube and Facebook channels.

See also:

• Official website
• Leg 1 of the MPL Indian Chess Tour: all the games