The Magistral Ciudad de Leon 2015, one of the top classics of the international chess circuit, is set to take place from 11-15th June at the Cuidad de Leon Auditorium in Leon, Spain.
The event keeps this year its traditional format: four players, the semi-finals being played on Friday and Saturday, and the final on Sunday.
After being forced to reduce the budget for some years because of the financial crisis, the sponsors have made a big effort to get four very attractive players (as it happened already in 2014): the French Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, one of the strongest young stars; the Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov, former World Champion; the Chinese Yi Wei, 15 years old, a clear candidate to become World Champion in the near future; and the Spanish David Anton, silver medal at the European Championship.
The tournament dates are June 11-15th, the games will be played on the 12th, 13th and 14th.
It will be a four-player knockout system. First semi-final on Friday, the second one on Saturday and the final on Sunday. The two players with a higher Elo will play against the other two in the semi-finals. The colours will be decided by the drawing of lots, on Thursday, June 11th.
Each match will be played at the best of four games, 20 minutes per player + 10 seconds per move. The tiebreak, if needed, will be a series of blitz games (five minutes per player).
