The third edition of the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters 2025 starts August 6th. The tournament will take place at Hyatt Regency, Chennai. Round 1 is all set to begin on Wednesday, 3 PM local time. This year, the tournament features 20 players across 2 sections, and has a prize pool on INR 1 crore.
The Masters
The Masters section features top global stars. Starring the line-up this year are Grandmasters Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer, Vidit Gujrathi, Nihal Sarin, Jorden Van Foreest, Ray Robson, Awonder Liang, Pranav V and Karthikeyan Murali.
Pranav was the first player to secure his spot in the Masters section after he won the inaugural Challengers event last year. With a rating average of over 2700 the tournament offers some very crucial FIDE circuit points to the top finishers.
The Challengers
Since 2024, the tournament also has a Challengers event with an aim to provide stage for the rising Indian talents. The winner of the Challengers tournament qualifies for the Masters event in the subsequent edition.
This year, 2 spots of the Challengers section were decided by a qualifier tournament hosted in July on Chess.com. GMs Diptayan Ghosh and Pranesh M and IM Harshavardhan GB secured the top three spots in the qualifiers and will be playing in the Challengers section alongside GMs Adhiban Baskaran, Leon Mendonca, Abhimanyu Puranik, Aryan Chopra, Iniyan P, Harika Dronavalli and Vaishali R.
This year, the we’re delighted to have Quanbox Research as our title sponsor! The tournament has a total prize pool of INR 1 crore, This is split between the two sections, with winner of the Masters section receiving 25 Lakhs and the winner of the Challengers section taking home 7 Lakhs. Format of the tournament is single Round Robin comprising 9 rounds. Time control for the tournament is 90 minutes for the whole game, with a 30 second increment from move 1.
To the chess fans reading this, the Quantbox Chennai Grand Masters is open to visitors on all days. You can book your tickets on the KYNhood app or their mobile web version and have an unforgettable tournament experience. Join us in Chennai and see your favorite players live in action!
