Sixteen of the world’s top chess players, including India’s Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin converged in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh to compete for their clubs as chess makes its debut at the Esports World Cup. After the first day’s action, four players have made the cut for the quarter-finals: Levon Aronian (Group A), Erigaisi (Group B), Alireza Firouzja (Group C), and Magnus Carlsen (Group D).
Meanwhile, there are other players who will be fighting for the remaining spots in the Losers Brackets at the Esports World Cup: from Group A, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Vladislav Artemiev, and Andrey Esipenko; Anish Giri, Nihal Sarin, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in Group B; Javokhir Sindarov, Wei Yi, and Hikaru Nakamura in Group C; and Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Fabiano Caruana, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda in Group D.
There are prizes worth $1.5 million on offer at the chess event at the Esports World Cup, what’s even more mindboggling is that the four players that finish at the bottom of the 16-player standings will take home a mind-boggling $50,000. This means that even if a player loses every single game at the event, they still take home approximately Rs 43 lakh.
Magnus Carlsen plays against Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the Esports World Cup in Riyadh. (Screengrab via Esports World Cup YouTube)
That is the amount Divya Deshmukh won for winning the FIDE Women’s World Cup. Although it must be noted that the World Cup is organised by the global governing body of chess, FIDE, which has other obligations like popularising the sport at grassroots across 200+ nations. FIDE also bears the responsibility of organising world championships across age groups. Meanwhile, the Esports World Cup is bankrolled by private entities and is also aided by the cash-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the event.
So what do players who finish in other positions than the bottom at the chess event in the ongoing Esports World Cup stand to gain?
The winner of the tournament stands to gain a whopping $2,50,000 or a quarter of a million dollars. That’s approximately Rs 2.1 crore.
Here’s the rest of the prize money breakdown:
2nd place: $1,90,000 (approx Rs 1.6 crore)
3rd place: $1,45,000 (approx Rs 1.2 crore)
4th place: $1,15,000 (approx Rs 1 crore)
5th place (four players): $85,000 (approx Rs 74 lakh)
9th place (four players): $65,000 (approx Rs 56 lakh)
