On the first weekend of September, the Play Magnus Group organised the first tournament of the Julius Bär Challenge 2022, an online tournament in which eight male and eight female juniors played a round-robin with rapid time-control. A win yielded three points, a draw one point.
The total prize fund was 10,000 USD with 2,000 USD for the winner. The winner also qualified for the final tournament, the "Final Four" (October 29 and 30, 2022), where the best players of the series will compete for the overall victory.
Judit Polgar served as mentor for the Julius Baer Challenge.
Top seed Andrey Esipenko dominated the tournament from beginning to end and finished clear first with 41/45.
With 31/45 the Indian junior Raunak Sadhwani finished on second place and also qualified for the Final Four Tournament.
None of the eight female participants managed to advance to the first half of the table. That's the case in most of the Julius Baer Challenge tournaments. But it is still a good idea to let the best male and female talents play in the same tournament as this gives the young players an opportunity to gain experience against the best junior players in the world. Bibisara Assaubayeva and Ley Garifullina led the second half of the table with 21 points.
