Vidit and Abhimanyu pull out of AICF’s online selection event

List of 206 World Cup participants will be finalised in the first week of June

Hoping to qualify for next month’s chess World Cup by virtue of his high world ranking, Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi withdrew from the AICF online selection tournament for the World Cup on Monday. The pull out of Vidit and fellow GM Abhimanyu Puranik reduced the field to 17 players. The winner of the event will grab India’s lone qualifying spot for the World Cup, scheduled from July 10 to August 6, at Sochi (Russia). “Given my rating, I should make the list of those directly seeded for the World Cup,” said Vidit when contacted on Monday.