Grandmasters’ getaway: India’s vacation capital Goa turns into chess arena as it prepares to host the World Cup

“Even the grandmasters need a holiday. Preferably before facing each other,” reads a board at Goa’s Resort Rio, a five-star hotel in the tony village of Arpora that will host the FIDE World Cup (Express Photo by Amit Kamath)

On the eve of the tournament, the organisers are applying the finishing touches to the playing hall, with some volunteers going from board to board adding batteries to chess clocks, others putting pieces on the starting squares, while some others have taken on the onerous task of wiping each chess piece on the board.

Much of the heavy-lifting to get the playing arena up to task was done in the last few days before the players started showing up: the tables being used at the venue were custom built at a makeshift workshop at the Resort Rio itself; the relentless rain in Goa meant that people with the organising team had to sit with hand-held dryers to dry the paint on tables. Additional lights had to be added to the playing hall, and a new carpet was added to the whole playing hall to diminish the sound of footsteps.

With the FIDE World Cup being a knockout tournament and the number of players being pruned every three days, the look of the playing hall will be a constant work in progress. Currently, there are 78 boards laid out. After every three days — as players get eliminated — the playing hall will bear a different look: 64 boards in round 2, 32 boards for round 3 and so on. By the time the semi-finals come about, there will be a stage set up in one corner of the hall where the top boards are presently set up. While spectators can only walk around in a designated zone at the playing hall for the first two rounds, by the semis and the final, there will be chairs laid out for them to watch the action.

With the FIDE World Cup being a knockout tournament and the number of players being pruned every three days, the look of the playing hall will be a constant work in progress. (Express Photo by Amit Kamath)

In keeping with the love Goa holds for football in its heart, the second rest day of the tournament will see a team of players taking on a team of arbiters and other officials in a football game. It’s an attempt to infuse some colour in a sport that identifies itself with black and white.

The boards being used for the World Cup were the same ones bought during the Chess Olympiad in Chennai in 2022, which were then given to state associations. Now, for the World Cup, 81 boards have made their way to Goa from eight states: this includes 20 boards coming from Gujarat, 10 from Chhattisgarh, nine each from Maharashtra and Bihar, eight from Madhya Pradesh, and seven from Karnataka, among other states.

Colourful opening

Meanwhile, about 20 kilometres away from the playing arena, Goa’s tryst with hosting the 2025 FIDE World Cup started with a riot of song, dance and speeches at the Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium in Talaigao as the opening ceremony of the event sees performances from Usha Uthup and the Hormuzd Khambada Dance Group with about 50 grandmasters, including Divya Deshmukh, Leon Luke Mendonca, Faustino Oro and Vasyl Ivanchuk, attending.

Leon Luke Mendonca, the state’s second GM, who will be competing at his first World Cup, said that it is a weird experience to play a top-tier event so close to home.

“I had heard that the World Cup would happen in New Delhi. So when it came to Goa instead, I actually didn’t believe it at first,” Mendonca told The Indian Express. “I’m very happy to be playing in the World Cup because I was fortunate to get into it, and it will be my first one. It’s a weird feeling for me. I usually travel everywhere around the world to play in tournaments, so it feels different to sit at home, which is just 10 kilometres from the playing venue, and then come to the games that too, for such an important event.”

Unlike Leon, there are other players who have had to take red-eye connections to get to Goa. One of those players is Bomo Lovet Kigigha, a FIDE Master from Nigeria, who travelled around 28 hours, taking three flights to get to Goa for the World Cup.

Having a chess tournament in Goa might be an unusual move, with the state giving India just two of its 90 grandmasters. But Divya Deshmukh, the only woman competing in the 206-player field, has no trouble seeing how the scenic coastal paradise might play the perfect host for an indoor sport.

“The World Cup, as I experienced earlier this year at the Women’s World Cup, is a pretty exhausting tournament. So Goa is the perfect venue for this event, it has so many beaches and perfect weather, so it’s great for taking long walks to unwind,” Divya Deshmukh said.

The most visited troika of beaches in the state—Baga, Anjuna and Candolim—are a short drive from Resort Rio. But for grandmasters who don’t fancy travelling that far, the backyard of Resort Rio has a quaint section that mimics a Rio de Janeiro cabana with hammocks and sand, next to a massive swimming pool and multiple statues of elephants. The backyard also boasts of quaint views with the backwaters from the Baga Beach flowing just beyond the boundary wall.

From Saturday, the land of sunsets, sea and susegad (Goan for quiet), will be a hive of shatranj strategy. And no one will be in the mood for a holiday.