After Freestyle, chess extends to Esports as Carlsen, Fabi, Erigaisi sign up
Innovation and money keeps coming into the ancient game of chess one after the other. Early last year former world champion Magnus Carlsen joined hands with German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner initiating the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam tour. Into its second year now, the Freestyle version (a.k.a Fischerandom & Chess960) has flowered into a multi-continent money spinner with the 2025 edition assuring players of US$ 4 million.
Freestyle is basically a chess variant from where 960 different starting positions are possible. The idea floated by former world champion Bobby Fischer, that of interchanging pieces in the first rank, has become a reality many decades after the thought was born.
For those new to the terminology, Esports is the short form for electronic sports. Esports is an organized digital platform, where multiplayer video game competitions takes place, between highly trained professional players, played individually or as teams.
Another cash-strapped event, a windfall to the chess elite, will be the second edition of the Esports World Cup scheduled for July-August 2025 which offers US$ 1.5 million to chess. For the second year running the event is to be held at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Esports World Cup is an elite multi-genre competition that started in Saudi Arabia last year. Its being held in an exotic world-class venue Riyadh Boulevard City in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The EWC 2025 offers the largest prize pool in esports – US$ 60 million – featuring the most popular esports across all major gaming genres. It will welcome a new cross-game competition format, awarding prizes for individual game titles and club performances. It is designed for both professional esports players and gaming enthusiasts, with qualifiers to provide as many teams as possible with the opportunity to participate, along with a thrilling calendar of on-the-ground activation’s, LIVE entertainment, and competitions for fans.
Some of the esports games on display in the previous edition were PUBG, Rocket League, ESL R1, TEKKEN8, EA SPORTS FC24, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, StarCraft III, Fortnite, Street Fighter 6, Teamfight Tactics, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege, Honor of Kings, Overwatch 2, PUBG Mobile, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB), Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 and the list goes on. The prize money offered to team/individual winners are huge and the sheer numbers will make one dizzy.
That chess has found a place in the 2025 edition is a jackpot for the players. Roped instantly in the past week were World No. 1 & 2 Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana by global esports giant Team Liquid. In a press release Team Liquid co-CEO Steve Arhancet said, “We are entering chess with the absolute best players because winning is critical to our mission”.
Said World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen on the Esports World Cup, “”In this digital age, we’re finding that chess in an Esports setting is tremendously exciting, and that’s where I see the future of chess in faster formats”.
World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana expressed his excitement on becoming part of the Esports World Cup, “I am really excited to join Team Liquid, an organization with a long heritage of success. We have a lot of the same values in terms of integrity, competitive drive, striving for excellence—and of course, winning”.
Already signed up are former World Champion Ding Liren (LGD Gaming) along with GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (Team Vitality), Arjun Erigaisi (Gen.G) and Volodar Murzin (All Gamers Global). Immediately after the sign up of Carlsen & Caruana the NAVI (Natus Vincere) Esports club signed top GMs viz., World No. 6 Nodirbek Abdusattorov, World No. 11 Wesley So and speed chess expert Oleksandr Bortnyk.
More Grandmasters are likely to be roped in before the largest esports event takes off in Riyadh on 31st July, 2025.
Picture Courtesy: Esports World Cup
Official Site: https://esportsworldcup.com/en
