NEW DELHI: The official line-up for the Las Vegas leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour was launched final Tuesday, and one identify was conspicuously absent. Reigning World Champion D Gukesh, who was broadly anticipated to tackle Magnus Carlsen as soon as once more, was not listed among the many 16 gamers set to battle it out in Sin Metropolis from July 16 to twenty.Now, Freestyle Chess co-founder and CEO Jan Henric Buettner has revealed the rationale behind the late change.“He mentioned he’s exhausted and desires relaxation,” Buettner instructed TimesofIndia.com throughout an unique interplay.“His performances haven’t been that good at any Grand Slam. We had been all the time anticipating that he would decline to take part within the subsequent occasion,” Buettner added.“Anyway, he had an invite (for the Las Vegas leg). So after his not-so-good efficiency in Paris, he was nonetheless up for the duty. He mentioned, ‘We’re gonna come. I’ll come to Las Vegas,'” he added.“However then, there was Norway Chess. This exhausted him a lot. Even I might be exhausted. He was so exhausted that I bought a message. He mentioned he is exhausted and want to relaxation. He cannot come to Las Vegas. Sadly, he wants relaxation. So, you already know, that is comprehensible.”Buettner confirmed that Vidit has now been formally included within the line-up rather than Gukesh. “So we invited Vidit once more as a substitute. So Vidit will put on the crimson jacket of Gukesh this time in Vegas,” he mentioned.
D Gukesh, Vidit Gujrathi, Arjun Erigaisi, and R Praggnanandhaa from proper to left (Photograph Credit score: ChessBase India)
In Freestyle Chess, it has develop into a practice for gamers to put on distinctively colored jackets — like in Paris, the place R Praggnandhaa wore inexperienced, Arjun Eigiasi blue, Vidit maroon, and Gukesh crimson.The withdrawal comes at a time when Gukesh has been making an attempt to strike consistency on the Freestyle Chess circuit. After an eighth-place end at Weissenhaus and eleventh in Paris, the 19-year-old stood eleventh total with simply 4 FCC factors. Submit-Grenke Open, he dropped additional to sixteenth.Nonetheless, Gukesh confirmed his class on the latest Norway Chess match, the place he completed third — simply behind Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana — and notched up wins excessive three FIDE-rated gamers: Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Arjun Erigaisi.
In the meantime, the Las Vegas occasion, the fourth cease of the 2025 Grand Slam Tour, can be Freestyle Chess’s first ever on American soil. Hosted on the Wynn Las Vegas from July 16 to twenty, the match will welcome a dwell viewers and have a prize pool of $750,000, with $200,000 reserved for the winner.In one other improvement first reported by TimesofIndia.com on Thursday, the Indian leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, scheduled for September 17–24 in New Delhi, has been cancelled as a result of lack of sponsors. In the meantime, Jan Henric Buettner will step down as CEO on July 1, with COO Thomas Harsch set to take over every day operations. Buettner will proceed as Government Chairman in a strategic function.