Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi softened his criticism of the hotel conditions in India during last year’s Chess World Cup in Goa, but not by much. He called Goa a ‘great place’ with ‘everything’ but said FIDE chose ‘one of the worst hotels’ with too spicy food.
Nepomniachtchi lost to Diptayan Ghosh after getting a bye into the second round and took it out on the hotel, Resort Rio, calling it substandard via social media and ensuing interviews. That led to severe criticism from the Indian chess fanbase, who called him out for always finding an ‘excuse’ for his defeats.
“Goa is a great place, first of all, with a good climate, it has everything,” Nepomniachtchi said on Greg Mustreader’s YouTube podcast. “It’s a beautiful place, but they chose probably one of the worst locations, one of the worst hotels. I spoke with officials from FIDE. They said: ‘Well, yes’, but when we arrived, it was too late to change anything. Of course, the hotel leaves something to be desired”, he said.
He compared the conditions to Cuba, saying that the hotels even there were ‘tired’ but at least the food was better.
“You’re playing for the cause, there are a few ‘tired’ hotels, and… But there, in my opinion, the food is better in Cuba. I prefer this food because it has fewer spices and other things. I think that even Andrey Esipenko, who has come quite far, to go to Cyprus later said: ‘At some point, we couldn’t eat anything at the hotel, we drove to restaurants.’
Nepomniachtchi added that he switched hotels after a few days, before criticising FIDE for picking a poorly rated hotel.
“It’s clear that some people like complaining more, someone less, especially when the tournament is going badly. But the conditions, in my opinion, were unacceptable. I mean, this is a tournament that is held once every two years. And, probably, it was possible to choose a hotel for this event with ratings higher than 6 on Booking. I’ve never seen such rankings on Booking to be honest. There are probably, there are even lower ones. On a scale of 0 to 10, ‘give a rating,; well, 6, I would say, not solid.”
