French GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave commented on the conflict over the clash of dates between the Grand Chess Tour and the Esports World Cup. MVL points out that the main issue is the need to qualify for both tournaments, and states that he and his team, Vitality, are motivated to resolve the problem.

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

French GM

“I really hope that things can be resolved. I don’t really know what it’s going to take, but at least I’m motivated, my team, Vitality, is very motivated to solve this issue peacefully.

The main issue is that these are tournaments you have to qualify for. I’ve already qualified for the GCT, and many other players have too — for example, Alireza Firouzja has already qualified for both events. It’s a bit of a bummer. If these were invitational tournaments, it wouldn’t be a problem. But you have to earn your place here…

In general, about our collective letter, I hope this becomes a trend, and hopefully in the future we’ll get a proper union of players trying to resolve these kinds of issues. Not that they should happen in the first place, but still.

I really hope both the Grand Chess Tour and the Esports World Cup can find a compromise.”

Elite world chess players have published an open letter addressed to the organisers of GCT and EWC on February 10. Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer, Praggnanandhaa R and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave called on the organisers to consider adjustments or practical solutions that would allow players to participate in both events.

The Esports World Cup is a premier annual international gaming tournament and festival held in Riyadh, with a $1,500,000 prize fund. Grand Chess Tour is an annual circuit of international chess tournaments with a $2,000,000 prize pool across 2 Classical tournaments, 3 Rapid & Blitz events and the Grand Finals.

Credit: Lennart Ootes