World No 3 Fabiano Caruana shed light on the ongoing scheduling conflict between the Grand Chess Tour and the Esports World Cup and how Magnus Carlsen’s influence as the best in the world has led to the current situation.
Chess, like other sports, has a problem of plenty when it comes to the number of high-profile events across the year. So much so that R Praggnanandhaa and other top players in the world have issued an open letter in which they have shed light on a major scheduling conflict this year.
The open letter, which has also been signed by Fabiano Caruana as well as Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer and Alireza Firouzja besides ‘Pragg’, is addressed to the Esports World Cup as well as the Grand Chess Tour, both of whom have events lined up in August.
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Last Chance Qualifier for the Esports World Cup takes place from 6 to 8 August with the main event then taking place from the 11th to the 15th. The GCT, on the other hand, will be organising the Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz from 2 to 6 August and the Sinquefield Cup from the 10th to the 20th.
The Magnus Carlsen impact
According to world No 3 Caruana, the blame for the scheduling mess lies solely with the Esports World Cup, who had announced their plans for this year just last week, with the spotlight once again on world No 1 Carlsen.
The Italian-American Grandmaster added that the Grand Chess Tour had unveiled their dates and got players to commit for the season well before the EWC’s announcement. Additionally, their United States leg comprising the two events in St Louis take place in the month of August every year, and no other major event organised either by governing body FIDE or by any other organisation had been taking place during this time until now.
“Besides the fact that the Grand Chess Tour announced their dates well in advance, they have had a consistent schedule for years. But besides the fact that their schedule has stayed consistent, also they announced it last year,” Caruana said on the C Squared Podcast recently.
“They announced when their events would be, and it’s pretty clear to people who are interested in chess that most top players will play the Grand Chess Tour, or want to play the Grand Chess Tour. Players like Pragg, players like Nodirbek, all these players also have an esports team, or many of them do. Like Maxime, like Alireza,” he added.
The 33-year-old added that such a situation would never had occured had Carlsen been part of the Grand Chess Tour. While the Norwegian superstar does participate in select GCT events, he focuses solely on the rapid and blitz formats given he’s semi-retired from Classical chess.
“I think if this was a thing that Magnus was playing the Grand Chess Tour, this problem would have never happened. But in general, there is the kind of view perhaps of the Esports World Cup that most players don’t matter for their tournament, which is obviously a wrong view. And so they knowingly decided to organise the Esports World Cup at the same time as the Grand Chess Tour.
“My position is that the Grand Chess Tour did nothing wrong. They announced their dates to give everyone a heads up. They invited their players well in advance, players accepted. And then the Esports World Cup decided that they didn’t care and put the players in position where they have to choose. But to be honest, the choice was already done,” Caruana added.
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