Abdusattorov, So, Bortnyk Join Ukrainian Esports Team; Wei Yi Signs For Weibo
Ukrainian esports organization Natus Vincere (NAVI) has entered the competitive chess scene with a bang by snapping up star grandmasters Wesley So, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Oleksandr Bortnyk. Meanwhile, world number-nine GM Wei Yi has also been signed by a Chinese team.
Esports organizations continue to invest heavily in chess ahead of the 2025 Champions Chess Tour, which kicked off on Sunday with the Chessable Masters. The $150,000 event is the first of two qualification events for the 2025 Esports World Cup (EWC), the world's largest gaming festival.
After Team Liquid on Friday announced that superstar GMs Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana had signed, NAVI made a splash by adding three strong grandmasters to their lineup.
NAVI introduced their trio of grandmasters in a video on Saturday: "We’re making a grand move! NAVI is officially entering the world of chess!" the esports organization wrote in a post on X/Twitter.
We’re making a grand move! NAVI is officially entering the world of chess! @chesscom
— NAVI Chess (@NAVIChess) February 15, 2025
Please welcome our Grandmasters @NodirbekGM, @WesleySo_, and @BortnykChess! pic.twitter.com/j1CxIGApyd
Founded in 2009, NAVI is considered one of the most successful esports organizations in the world, with successes in games such as Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and Valorant. The acquisition of Abdusattorov, the current world number-six and former World Rapid Champion, So, a former world number-two, and online speed chess specialist Bortnyk, makes NAVI a serious contender for prizes, should their players qualify.
This weekend, Wei Yi became the latest player to join the wave of grandmasters acquired by esports organizations. The Chinese 25-year-old has joined Weibo Gaming (WBG), which is owned by the Chinese social media company.
In the announcement, WBG said:
In the future, Wei Yi will write a new chapter with WBG. We expect him to bring more glory by combining esports and chess. At the same time, we also hope that this in-depth cooperation can make more young people understand and love this ancient, interesting, and competitive intellectual game, so that chess, an intellectual sport, can be promoted and paid more attention.
Prize money in the Esports World Cup is not only for individual sports ($1.5 million for chess), but also for overall placement in all the games combined. Esports organizations are signing up players in as many games as they can in order to get a shot at the grand prize.
The Chessable Masters continues today with the Play-In open to all grandmasters. The Playoffs, a 16-player knockout including invited stars such as GMs Carlsen, Caruana, and Hikaru Nakamura, begin Tuesday February 18 and end on February 21.
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Tarjei J. Svensen is a Norwegian chess journalist who worked for some of the country's biggest media outlets and appeared on several national TV broadcasts. Between 2015 and 2019, he ran his chess website mattogpatt.no, covering chess news in Norwegian and partly in English.
In 2020, he was hired by Chess24 to cover chess news, eventually moving to Chess.com as a full-time chess journalist in 2023. He is also known for his extensive coverage of chess news on his X/Twitter account.
