The Great Humanity

After the Champions Chess Tour 2021, the online combined designed for the élite, and the Julius Bär Challengers Chess Tour, expressly aimed at young talents, the time might come for Play Magnus Group to become a point of reference (i.e., a source of income) for most “middle-class” communities. The suggestion was made by the dean of chess journalists, Leonard Barden, who thus wrote, in his The Guardian weekly column of April 9, 2021:

Time to consider seriously a Tour second division of 16-20 with promotion and relegation to offset the growing impression of the same group of players continually meeting each other for huge prize funds, while most GMs have drastically reduced playing incomes due to the pandemic. Established talents like Richárd Rapport, 韦奕 (Wéi Yì), Vladislav Artemiev, Vladimir Fedoseev, David Navara, 余泱漪 (Yú Yāngyī), Sam Shankland, Parham Maghsoodloo; and crowd pleasers like Vasyl Ivanchuk, Alexei Shirov, and Baadur Jobava are some names that come to mind, though the last group did benefit from the Legends of Chess leg of the previous Tour. The top two women Aleksandra Goryachkina, 22, who declined an invitation to the Challengers Tour, and the all-time No 2, 侯逸凡 (Hóu Yìfán), are both strong enough to compete in a second Tour division.