Champions Chess Tour 2021

The Champions Chess Tour 2021, known for sponsorship reasons as the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, is a 10-month long series of 10 online chess tournaments featuring the world's top players, playing for a prize money pool of US$1.5 million. The tournament games are held on chess24.com and are broadcast on Twitch, chess24.com itself, and the tour's official website. The tour is scheduled to start on November 22, 2020 and last until October 3, 2021. The tournaments are not rated by FIDE.
Format.
There are 10 total tournaments in the tour: 6 labelled as Regular, 3 labelled as Major, and 1 Final. Each takes place towards the end of a month over the course of 9 days.
Qualification.
There are 16 spots in a Regular tournament, 16 spots in a Major tournament (originally planned to be 12), and 10 spots in the Final tournament.
For each of the Regular tournaments except for the 1st one, 8 of the 16 spots are given to the current top 8 players in the Tour Rankings. The rest of the spots are given out via wild cards, invitations, or popular votes. The 16 spots for the first tournament of the tour are chosen via the decision of the event organizers.
For the Major tournaments, 8 of the 16 spots are also given to the current top 8 players in the Tour Rankings. The winner of the preceding Regular tournament is also given a spot, if he is not already in the top 8. The rest of the spots are given via wild cards.
For the Final tournament, 8 of the 10 spots are given first to the winners of the 3 Major tournaments, then down the standings of the Tour Rankings. The final 2 spots are given to the best-performing "Tour Ambassadors."
Tournament formats.
Regular.
The Regular tournaments consist of a preliminary round and 3 knockout rounds. In the preliminary round, the 16 players participate in a round-robin spanning 3 days (5 games per day), with each player playing the other players for 1 game, totaling games. The top 8 players with the most points advance to the next round and are seeded for the purposes of making the bracket based on their points. In the event that 2 or more players are tied with points, the following system is used:
In the knockout rounds, each matchup consists of 2 matches of 4 rapid games on back-to-back days. If either player wins one match and at least draws the other, he advances on to the next round. If each player wins one match or both matches are drawn, immediately following the second match, the players play 2 blitz games. If the blitz games are split, the winner is determined via an Armageddon game (White gets 5 minutes, Black gets 4 minutes, draw counts as a win for Black). The higher seed in each matchup picks the color for the first game, the first tiebreaker, and the Armageddon.
Major.
The major tournament operates the same way as the Regular tournament. It is still the top 8 players who qualify for the knockout rounds. Furthermore, there will be a match for 3rd place among the semifinal losers.
Final.
The Final only consists of one round-robin for the 10 players, spanning 9 days (1 matchup per day). Each matchup will comprise 4 rapid games. If the 4 points are split among the two players, then 2 blitz games are played, followed by Armageddon if the blitz games are split. 3 points are awarded for an outright win (no tiebreak needed), 2 points are awarded for a tiebreak win, and 1 point is awarded for a tiebreak loss.
In addition to these points, the players start off with bonus points based on their Tour rankings coming into the Final. The player with the fewest Tour points gets 0 bonus points, and the other players are awarded half a point for every full 10 points they have more than the player with the least number. For example, if Player A has the fewest Tour points with 86, a Player B with 143 Tour points will be awarded 2.5 points, since they exceed Player A's total by 57 (no rounding).
The player with the greatest sum of bonus points and points won in the Final will be crowned the Tour Champion.
Tour points.
For Regular tournaments, points are awarded as follows. 
The regulations were changed after the Skilling Open tournament; in this first tournament of the tour, the runner-up was awarded 20 points and the two remaining semi-finalists were each awarded 10 points, without a match for 3rd place.
Additional points are also awarded to finishes in the preliminary round:
The points system for Major tournaments is the same, but all values are doubled.
In the event that two players are tied for the same amount of Tour points, the following tiebreak system will be used:
The administrators of the tournament also have the right to substitute a tiebreak match if the tie is for a qualification spot.
Prize money.
Regular.
The total prize pool for a Regular tournament is $100,000. The money is split as follows:
The regulations were changed after the Skilling Open tournament; in this first tournament of the tour, the players who lost in the semifinals each received $7,500, without a match for 3rd place.
Major.
The total prize pool for a Major tournament is $200,000. The money is split as follows:
Final.
The prize pool for the final is $300,000, which is split as follows:
Results.
Tour rankings.
During an ongoing tournament, points that may yet increase as the tournament progresses are indicated by "≥".
The column labelled "Wins" indicates the number of tournament wins.
The column labelled "Apps" indicates the number of tournament appearances (including the ongoing tournament, if any).
The top 5 are guaranteed a spot in the Final. Players finishing 6th through 8th may also qualify if enough players above them qualify as Major winners. Players outside the top 8 can only be invited as a wild card. An asterisk denotes a Major.
Tournaments.
Skilling Open.
The results of the preliminary round were as follows.
The results of the knockout rounds were as follows.
Airthings Masters.
The results of the preliminary round were as follows.
The results of the knockout rounds were as follows.
Qualifiers.
Chessable Qualifier.
Chessable Qualifier was held from 17-18 October 2020, and was a qualification tournament for Skilling Open, the first event of the Champions Chess Tour.
Coverage.
Chess24.com is providing free live coverage of every tournament, with commentary in 10 different languages. They are broadcasting on their website, the official tour website, and on Twitch. Various other chess streamers are also providing live commentary.
Sponsorship.
Julius Baer and Opera are two listed sponsors of the event. Skilling sponsored the first tournament, while Airthings sponsored the second tournament. Future sponsors have yet to be announced. The Tour is also funded by offering Premium and VIP Tour Passes, services that offer perks such as voting on the wild cards, memberships for Chess24.com, and interaction opportunities with chess's top players.
On January 3, 2021, Meltwater was announced as the title partner for the tour, thereby renaming it the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour.