Local hero GM Jaime Santos has won the 2026 Leon Masters after celebrating his 30th birthday by beating 12-year-old Argentinian GM-elect Faustino Oro 3-1 in the Semifinals, before overcoming Vietnamese defending champion GM Liem Le 3.5-0.5 in the final. Le had previously needed armageddon to defeat GM Kirill Alekseenko in the Semifinals.
This was the 39th edition of the tournament in Leon, Spain, that has been won by stars including World Champions Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Magnus Carlsen, and especially Viswanathan Anand, whose victory in 2024 completed a record 10 titles. You need to go back to GM Leonid Yudasin to find another winner who, like Santos (peak rating 2680), has never been rated above 2700, but Santos now joins the illustrious group to have won the title two or more times.
Leon Masters Winners
| # | Year | FED | Player | # | Year | FED | Player |
| 1 | 1988 | Javier Campos | 21 | 2008 | Vasyl Ivanchuk | ||
| 2 | 1989 | Jozsef Pinter | 22 | 2009 | Magnus Carlsen | ||
| 3 | 1990 | Julio Granda | 23 | 2010 | Boris Gelfand | ||
| 4 | 1991 | Yevgeniy Vladimirov | 24 | 2011 | Viswanathan Anand | ||
| 5 | 1992 | Boris Gulko | 25 | 2012 | Francisco Vallejo | ||
| 6 | 1993 | Leonid Yudasin | 26 | 2013 | Anish Giri | ||
| 7 | 1994 | Alexander Beliavsky | 27 | 2014 | Wei Yi | ||
| 8 | 1995 | Alexei Shirov | 28 | 2015 | Wei Yi | ||
| 9 | 1996 | Viswanathan Anand | 29 | 2016 | Viswanathan Anand | ||
| 10 | 1997 | Veselin Topalov | 30 | 2017 | Wesley So | ||
| 11 | 1998 | Garry Kasparov | 31 | 2018 | Wesley So | ||
| 12 | 1999 | Viswanathan Anand | 32 | 2019 | Parham Maghsoodloo | ||
| 13 | 2000 | Viswanathan Anand | 33 | 2020 (online) | Leinier Dominguez | ||
| 14 | 2001 | Viswanathan Anand | 34 | 2021 (online) | Boris Gelfand | ||
| 15 | 2002 | Vladimir Kramnik | 35 | 2022 | Boris Gelfand | ||
| 16 | 2003 | Ruslan Ponomariov | 36 | 2023 | Jaime Santos | ||
| 17 | 2004 | Alexei Shirov | 37 | 2024 | Viswanathan Anand | ||
| 18 | 2005 | Viswanathan Anand | 38 | 2025 | Liem Le | ||
| 19 | 2006 | Viswanathan Anand | 39 | 2026 | Jaime Santos | ||
| 20 | 2007 | Viswanathan Anand |
The Leon Masters was a pioneer of the knockout format in chess, and once again the format was a four-player knockout with each match played over four 20+10 rapid games. If still tied, there were two 3+2 blitz games, then, if needed, one 6 vs. 5-minute armageddon game.
2026 Leon Masters Bracket
Oro was narrowly defeated by Anand in the Semifinals in 2025, and once again the Argentinian prodigy didn’t make it to the final.
Jaime Santos 3-1 Faustino Oro
Santos had a slight edge with the white pieces in the first game, but it came to nothing, while in the second he admitted he’d mixed up his move-order in the opening and was under pressure. Then, however, Oro rushed with 27.Bd6?!.
He needed to prepare the move first with 27.Qg3!, since in this version Santos was able to sac the exchange with 27…Rxd6! and soon had powerful pressure against Oro’s weak king. There were chances to hold, but instead Santos went on to score a powerful win.
Oro then played the Najdorf Sicilian in the next game and got the double-edged struggle he wanted, but a couple of slow moves extinguished his initiative, while 29.Bf6! was the move that left Oro suddenly defenseless.
“I think Jaime was better today,” confessed Oro, with Santos celebrating his birthday in perfect style.
The fourth game is played in Leon even if the match is over, with the players making a quiet and relatively quick draw. There was nothing quick or quiet about the second semifinal, however.
Kirill Alekseenko 3-4 Liem Le
Alekseenko, who played in the 2020-1 FIDE Candidates Tournament, was a late replacement for 2024 World Rapid Champion GM Volodar Murzin, who failed to get a visa to travel to Spain.
The newcomer faced a tough challenge against defending champion Le, but got off to a perfect start after Le’s 6…Bg4!? in the Italian backfired on his first attempt.
The move would become a theme of the match, with Le explaining: “It’s just a very small idea that I have. I thought, OK, it’s a little rare, so maybe it would surprise my opponent. Of course, if you analyze with engines… it gives a high evaluation for White, 0.5 or 0.6 [at first], but if you analyze it long enough it’s kind of playable. It’s a little bit risky, but I thought for rapid and blitz it should be OK.”
The key moment of the game came when Le spent eight minutes choosing the wrong square for his knight and came under a relentless attack, with Alekseenko dominating on the kingside before switching to the queenside, where his opponent was helpless to defend.
The second game was a quiet draw, and the third seemed to have reached a fortress that would have edged Alekseenko closer to the final. He noted, however, that “objectively a draw would be a good result for me, but it was quite unpleasant from the very beginning,” and that even if he’d made the right move a draw wouldn’t have been inevitable.
The final rapid game was drawn, so that the players switched to blitz. The first game saw Le smoothly win in the London, but in the second he grabbed a poisoned pawn and was instantly put to the sword.
That meant a place in the final would be decided in armageddon, with Alekseenko getting White and an extra minute, but needing to win on demand. In the end it all came down to one move.
24.Ng6! was a nice shot missed by both players. 24…fxg6? loses to 25.Rxe6!, while moving the queen runs into 25.Nf4, and e6 is attacked by three pieces.
Instead, however, Alekseenko played 24.Nf5?, overlooking that Le could sacrifice his queen with 24…Bxf5!, and, when the queen was grabbed, the game was soon over.
Le commented: “I’m just very relieved that I managed to win a very tough match today and, first of all, I wanted to thank my opponent for an excellent match, very tense, very fighting for both of us, and I hope the spectators enjoyed it.”
That set up a repeat of the previous year’s semifinal, when Le had beaten Santos in blitz.
Jaime Santos 3.5-0.5 Liem Le
This time Santos got revenge, with Le putting the loss down to the first game, and one moment in the first game. He said of the opportunity to play 25.h3!: “I just didn’t see this at all, otherwise I could have played it—I think that was really the deciding game of the match, basically!”
The second game was a quiet Berlin draw, while in the third Le misplayed a promising closed position, ended up worse, and then sank to defeat when it still seemed possible to put up resistance.
That completed revenge for Santos, giving him the title with a game to spare. The fourth game was played anyway, with Le going for a sharp opening. He explained: “It was not a good idea, but I thought, OK, the match was decided already, so let me just get a game instead of play a Berlin and make a quick draw. I don’t know much about the Sicilian, but let me just try it!”
Santos duly picked up another win to complete a dominant tournament for the Spanish number-four. Afterward he simply summed up: “I’m very happy to have won, of course, I played quite well, in general—not much more to say!”
I played quite well, in general—not much more to say!
—Jaime Santos
Santos will now play in the Spanish Championship and in the Olympiad, while Le is heading to Biel/Bienne in Switzerland to rest for a few days before the 2026 Biel Chess Festival, which starts this weekend.
GMs Levon Aronian and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus will be among his rivals.
The 2026 Leon Masters was a four-player knockout that took place in Leon, Spain on July 3-5, featuring GMs Jaime Santos, Liem Le, Kirill Alekseenko and GM-elect Faustino Oro. Each match consisted of four 20+10 rapid games. If the scores were tied, the players competed in two 3+2 blitz games, followed, if needed, by a single armageddon game where White got six minutes to Black’s five, but a draw would count as a win for Black.
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