Chennai Grandmasters Chess Tournament: Fire Breaks Out At Hyatt Regency Hotel, Round 1 Matches Postponed; Video
After the entire hotel became smoky and everyone had to evacuate the hotel before it became difficult to breathe. All the players, who were staying in the hotel, were confirmed safe and were shifted to a hotel nearby. The start of the event was also pushed by a day following the same.
iMAGE: cHESSBASEIndia/X
The Hyatt Regency hotel in Chennai, the venue for the Chennai Grandmasters Chess tournament, caught fire on Tuesday. The visual of the incident has surfaced online. All the players, who were staying in the hotel, were confirmed safe and were shifted to a hotel nearby.
The organizers decided to postponed round 1 games from 6th to 7th of August 2025. This was made possible as the tournament had a rest day on 11th of August. With game snow getting porponed there will be no rest day. All the players and officials were given a room in Hotel Pullman for the night before returning to the tournament venue.
According to Chessbase India, the incident occured close to midnight. Due to an electric fire on the 9th floor, the entire hotel became smoky and everyone had to evacuate the hotel before it became difficult to breathe. For a few minutes everyone was confused, but when it became clear that it would take more than a few hours for smoke to clear.
About Chennai Grandmasters Chess Tournament
The tournament is split into two categories Masters and Challengers.
The Masters field is led by world no.6 Arjun Erigaisi, who might be considered by some as the favourite to win the tournament this time. Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer, Vidit Gujrathi and Nihal Sarin are all part of a strong field. Dutchman Jorden van Foreest, USA's Awonder Liang and Ray Robson, and Indians V Pranav and Karthikeyan Murali round off the Masters field.
The Challengers tournament will see Harika Dronavalli and Vaishali Rameshbabu a part of the field. Leon Luke Mendonca, B Adhiban, P Iniyan, Abhimanyu Puranik, Diptayan Ghosh, Aryan Chopra, M Pranesh, and Harshavardhan GB are the rest of the players in the field.
What is the significance of this tournament?
The tournament will give players the FIDE circuit points required to get into the Candidates tournament, and the rest, as they say, is history. Apart from Circuit points, there's also the huge incentive of building form and momentum ahead of the two massive tournaments - the Grand Swiss in September and the World Cup in November.
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