The Hyatt Regency hotel in Chennai, the venue for the Chennai Grandmasters Chess tournament, caught fire on Tuesday. The visual of the incident has surfaced online. All the players, who were staying in the hotel, were confirmed safe and were shifted to a hotel nearby. The start of the event was also pushed by a day following the same.
According to Chessbase India, the incident occured close to midnight. Due to an electric fire on the 9th floor, the entire hotel became smoky and everyone had to evacuate the hotel before it became difficult to breathe.
For a few minutes everyone was confused, but when it became clear that it would take more than a few hours for smoke to clear, the organizers did two things:
1. Postponed round 1 from 6th to 7th of August 2025. This was made possible as the tournament had a rest day on 11th of August before. Now there will be no rest day.
2. All the players and officials were given a room in Hotel Pullman for the night.
The players will return back to Hyatt Regency in the morning on 6th of August.
