Dutch GM Anish Giri shuts down ‘exaggerated and ridiculous’ criticism of FIDE World Cup with trademark sarcasm | Chess News

Now, Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri has shut down these claims, branding some of the complaints as ‘exaggerated and ridiculous’. Having been eliminated in the third round, Giri made an appearance on the ChessBase India and Chess.com India livestream for the third round tiebreaks on Sunday where he dismissed some of the claims with his trademark humour.

“I’d be lying if I said that it was not a challenge to play in India for Western players. But it’s the same, the other way around,” Giri, who is on his fourth trip to India in 2025, pointed out. “Obviously I knew there will be some challenges playing in India. Things like jet lag and different food. But it’s fair, because when I play in my cold city of Wijk aan Zee (at the Tata Steel Chess tournament), there are Indians playing there and suffering without Indian food. It’s too cold for them there. It’s the same situation, but the reverse. But it was not too hot here. The food was reasonably diverse with Western dishes too like pasta etc. The spice level was not as high as I was fearing. My main issue was jet lag. Now I have completely recovered from jet lag. I have mosquito repellant too. I’m completely ready. But now I have a flight back home (after being eliminated).”

Giri also addressed claims by Nepo and those aired on Fabiano Caruana’s C Squared Podcast by his the American GM’s second, grandmaster Cristian Chirila, who said that multiple players had told him that there were “very regular instances of bedbugs” at the players hotel in Goa. Chirila also said that the players’ “hotel is not in the best shape”.

Giri said: “People who are not here (Caruana and Chirila), they said that there are bedbugs here. It’s kinda funny because they’re not even here, they’re there (In the USA)! They’re telling us that ‘you guys have bedbugs’. And now we’re in a state of panic: ‘where are the bedbugs?’ Some American guy is telling us that we have bedbugs here. And they’re saying that multiple sources have told them. I am like maybe it’s just one person who told many others and that’s why they’re hearing it from everywhere. I don’t have bedbugs in my room as far as I know.”

Giri then resorted to sarcasm while addressing the actual claim.

“My hope is that somebody here was on the bed, and saw some bug near the bed and they thought ‘I’m on the bed, this is a bug, so it must be a bedbug.’ Maybe a mosquito flying over the bed and they thought it was a bedbug. Cristian and Fabi are like, ‘We’ve qualified for the Candidates. And now you guys have bedbugs’. And here we are looking for bedbugs. Some of these things are exaggerated… just ridiculous. I heard that somebody said that to go to the toilet you have to go outside in the heat (and into another building). But actually, the toilet is just literally five metres away from the playing hall? You don’t even want the toilet any closer, it would be smelling, yeah?”

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Earlier, during his commentary stint on the broadcast, Giri had joked that it was nice to travel with a second (a player who helps another player train and prepare openings for a tournament) to tournaments so losses can be blamed on them.

“I told you that’s why it’s good to have a second. You can blame everything on the second. But if you don’t want to blame it on the second, you have got to go with blaming other things,” Giri said with a chuckle.

He went on to add that when events happen in the USA, players from around the world also have to travel a lot to play there and battle jet lag, but you never hear them complaining.

“There’s no complaints, yeah? You don’t hear the Uzbek players, for example, go on a podcast and complain!”