The second leg of the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, the Charity Cup, which features 16 of the world’s top chess stars and starts today, March 19 from 18:00 CET, is being put on with the newest partner of the Tour, NEAR Foundation. NEAR Foundation is responsible for supporting the awareness of NEAR and adoption of related web3 technologies.
Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Play Magnus Group announced this week that donations collected during the event will go to support humanitarian work, and the crypto-native Unchain Fund, a charity project created by blockchain activists with the goal to break the chain of war.
“The crypto community’s response to this crisis has been extremely inspiring and focused on the utility of web3 community organizing. Across the web3 community, tens of millions of dollars have been raised, with over two million dollars on the NEAR protocol alone. It’s great to see the chess community come together like this now as well during the Champions Chess Tour’s Charity Cup,” said Chris Ghent, from NEAR Foundation.
World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen heads the line-up for the Charity Cup, the second stage of the 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. Carlsen is the current Tour leader and reigning champion. However, the Norwegian faces competition from an elite field that includes five other national No.1 players. Other names to look out for include India’s 16-year-old sensation Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, who beat Carlsen in the last event, and Tour newcomer Richard Rapport, who shot to No.7 in the world rankings.
Throughout the event players and fans will be encouraged to donate to the charity fund. Anyone wanting to donate, can do so here.
The tournament runs from March 19th to 26th and will be broadcast live on www.chess24.com’s YouTube and Twitch channels.
