A nice mix of players
The 39th edition of the “Ciudad de León” Masters will take place in León in July 2026, with the main competition played from Friday 3 July to Sunday 5 July. The event keeps its traditional four-player knockout format, with two semifinals and a final. The broader programme is scheduled to include open tournaments, simultaneous exhibitions, street chess and activities for children and amateurs.
Each match in the Masters consists of four games with a time control of 20 minutes per player, with a 10-second increment from move one. If a match is tied after the four games, the winner will be decided in 5+3 games. The first semifinal will be played on 3 July, the second semifinal on 4 July and the final on 5 July. Pairings will be determined by seeding, with seeded players choosing their opponents, while colours will be drawn before the start of the event.
Le Quang Liem defeated Vishy Anand by a 2½-1½ in the final match of the 2025 edition
The field is made up of grandmasters Le Quang Liem, Kirill Alekseenko, Faustino Oro and Jaime Santos. Le Quang Liem returns as the defending champion, after beating Vishy Anand to win the 2025 edition. The Vietnamese grandmaster is a former world blitz champion, won the Asian Championship in 2019, and remains the highest-rated Vietnamese player in history.
Kirill Alekseenko brings experience from the 2020-21 Candidates Tournament. The Russian-born grandmaster, now representing Austria, crossed 2700 Elo in 2019, finished third at the Grand Swiss on the Isle of Man and later received an invitation to the Candidates. His recent career has been built around solid preparation, defensive technique and endgame play.
Faustino Oro returns to León with grandmaster-elect status. He secured his final GM norm at the Sardinia World Chess Festival, becoming the second-youngest grandmaster in history, at 12 years, 6 months and 26 days.
Jaime Santos gives the event a local representative. The León-born grandmaster won the tournament in 2023 and defeated a number of strong GMs in his home tournament, including Arjun Erigaisi in the 2024 semifinals. His previous appearances also include a 2017 match against Vishy Anand, in which he won one game before losing in the final tiebreak.
The roll of honour includes several leading players from recent decades. The latest winners are Le Quang Liem, Vishy Anand, Jaime Santos and Boris Gelfand (twice, in 2022 and 2021). The best-known former champions include Garry Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Veselin Topalov, Vasyl Ivanchuk, Alexei Shirov, Wesley So and Anish Giri.
The open tournament
The XI Internaional Open “Magistral de León” will be played at the Auditorio Ciudad de León on 4 and 5 July, alongside the main event. It will be a nine-round Swiss tournament. Play starts at 12:30 on 4 July, with six rounds scheduled for the first day and three more on 5 July. The time control is 15 minutes per player, with a 10-second delay per move, and the field is limited to 120 players.
The current list of registered players includes Ukrainian grandmaster Yuriy Kuzubov (rated 2606) and the ever-entertaining Spanish star David Lariño Nieto a.k.a. “el Fo”.
Full list of players…