Episode 48: Esports World Cup 2026 Chess Preview - Can Magnus Carlsen Defend His Title?

So there is the play-in stage, which will be eight players in a double elimination bracket.

We'll talk about the schedule in just a moment, but that is the first thing to happen.

That will feature Arvind Chetarambaram, Liam Lee, Andrei Espenko, Parham Maksudlu, Vladislav Artemyev, Wei Yi, Alexander Bortnik, and Alexander Grishuk.

Or Oleksandr Bortnik with an O and then Alexander Grishuk.

Those players will battle it out, and the top two players will then go into the group stages to join a number of players, namely Magnus Carlsen, the current title holder, Denis Lazarevic, who qualified through the Speed Chess Championship, Alireza Firuja, who qualified through the Speed Chess Championship, Jan-Sustav Duda, who qualified through the Chess.com Open, and then every other player barring Benjamin Bock, who qualified through the India Rising tournament, which we spoke about.

He defeated Vijit Gujarati there in Mumbai.

Every other player has been allocated a spot as part of the Champions Chess Tour leaderboard, that being Nihal Saran, Yanni Pomneshi, Moaved, Pranash M, Hans Niemann, Nurdbek Abdusatorov, Arjun Ergaisi and Alexei Sarana.

But there were three other players who would have qualified, who are not here.

That is Fabiana Coruana, who was replaced by Arjuna Eregaisi, rather, apologies.

Wesley So, who was replaced by Alexei Sarana.

Alexei Sarana would have been in the play-in stage, so he benefits massively from that.

And then Maxim Vasilagrav, who is being replaced by Pranesh.

You can see it all there if you're watching on YouTube at the bottom of the screen.

If you're listening on Spotify, it is at the bottom of the screen on YouTube.

they are all declined to play in the eSports World Cup.

And that is not because the tournament is not amazing.

That is because, ladies and gentlemen, as I made a video about a few days ago, it's doing really, really well at the moment.

Thank you all for supporting me and supporting the channel.

Chess has a massive problem, and that is that organizers don't talk to each other.

The three players who pulled out, Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana, and Maxim Vasilagrov, were part of the Grand Chess Tour.

one of their events is coinciding with the esports world cup and so they had a choice and the thing is they signed a contract with the grand chess tour they announced their dates uh well before the esports world cup and so they've all elected to honor their commitments to the grand chess tour one player who didn't is Alireza Ferruja he's chosen to abandon his grand chess tour contract they sent out a tweet and so on so forth and he has elected than to no longer be part of the Grand Chess, to afford this year, 2026, and to play in the Esports World Cup for 2026.