Women Grand Prix in shambles

A chess festival in New Delhi with more than 1000 participants is overshadowed by chaos at the embedded Women Grand Prix held at a five-star-hotel. Not waiting for organisational lapses to be fixed and in spite of apologies offered by FIDE and the organiser, Zhansaya Abdumalik from Kazakhstan walked out, and after a lot of nerve-wrecking discussions Elisabeth Pähtz followed her, both from the host countries of the two first Women Grand Prix events in Astana and Munich. As at least one other player rejected repairing the ten remaining participants, the qualifier for the Women Candidates Tournament 2024, is now proceeding in a hugely distorted way, while the current Candidates Final between Lei Tingjie and Tan Zhongyi is about to start on Wednesday.