In May 2024, chess really wasn’t a mainstream sport in Singapore. As they were considering a bid to host the 2024 FIDE World Championships, this was a chance for the sport to find a way into Singapore’s public consciousness, while also showcasing the country’s hospitality and ability to pull off events of scale.
Right from managing what is considered a coup in getting Google to sponsor the event, to questions around fairplay and security, to managing the finest details of the players’ diets, the local organising committee (LOC) hasn’t left a stone unturned in hosting an event that won’t be forgotten.
ESPN spoke to the Singapore Chess Federation’s CEO Kevin Goh, a Grandmaster himself, who is also the head of the Local Organising Committee (LOC), on the work that has gone on behind the scenes to allow Dommaraju Gukesh and Ding Liren to just concentrate on playing their best chess.
Why did Singapore bid to host the event?
Goh wanted a narrative around the match, which fell to them perfectly when Gukesh had qualified, and not, say, the American stalwarts Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. He even said that maybe the perception of Singapore not being neutral would’ve come into play had it been a match between a Chinese and an American, given the huge Chinese population in the country.
“When Gukesh won, we immediately thought Singapore would be a nice place to host an India vs China match,” Goh said.
Singapore’s population is predominantly Chinese, but there is also a large Indian community, which made it a tantalising prospect for the federation to appeal to the local community to come and watch the games.
It was initially just a thought. Goh didn’t think that his federation had the means to conceptually pull off such an event. The money wasn’t small. In the bidding document, the budget was touted at close to $8.5 million. Eventually, they had conversations with the government, and even met with Google to sponsor the event even before they submitted their bid to FIDE.
When the official bid materialised, Goh was reasonably confident that Singapore would win it over Indian cities Chennai and New Delhi. He said he knew that the Singapore bid had the advantage of neutrality. However, just neutrality wasn’t going to give Singapore the hosting rights.
Goh said that his federation didn’t take things for granted, they still needed to pull off an event that showcased the best of Singapore to the chess world. One of his big concerns was over-promising, both commercially and in terms of attendances. The capacity of the playing hall — eventually pegged at 400 — was benchmarked against some other tourist attractions in Singapore, while the general tickets were priced at SGD 64, a dollar apiece for each square on the chess board.
Player comfort: The biggest priority
First and foremost, Goh said that he wanted to make sure the two players got the absolute best of everything. Of course, the two teams have been protective of their players, which is only to be expected in such an event, but Goh said that they have been nothing but reasonable. Both players and their teams are living at the Equarius Hotel at Resorts World Sentosa, which is where the match has been happening as well.
That was one reason, Goh says, that they didn’t take the match to a more popular venue like, say, the Marina Bay Sands, the luxurious hotel which is in the heart of the city, rather than the quaint outskirts that Sentosa lies on. The players need exclusivity and some quiet during the match, so that took certain big Singaporean landmarks out of the equation.
Both Ding and Gukesh’s camps had spoken to the local organizing committee about their dietary requirements well before they had arrived in Singapore, and those have been met. Additionally, Goh says that Ding’s team reached out to him midway through the world championship to request for certain changes in the menu, just to add more variety rather than the same regimented meals every day. Both players have also asked to play some outdoor sport on certain rest days, which also had to be arranged.
The broadcast question
In the weeks after Singapore won the bid, the federation had two main requests for FIDE. Allowing fans to have their mobile phones inside the playing hall at all times and for the broadcast to have no delays. For the LOC, this was the most commercially attractive setup. In recent times, there has been a broadcast delay of 15 minutes in all high-profile chess events, including the Candidates tournament in Toronto earlier this year. This was in place as one of the steps to ensure fair play, so that the players could get no immediate external help from outside.
Eventually, FIDE agreed to the live broadcast, but not to the Singapore federation’s request for fans to have mobile phones in the hall. Now, fans are allowed to take their mobiles phones inside the playing hall for the first 30 minutes of games, and then have to come back out and deposit it. It’s a rather messy solution, but the only one they could arrive at. Goh said that in the end, both FIDE and the LOC agreed that this was the best possible solution.
“It doesn’t make sense when you have live spectators sitting around and they are looking at it (the game) but the screens aren’t live,” Goh said. “Hopefully, one day we will have the technology to do it. The best way right now is for spectators to bring in their phones and take pictures and videos for the first 30 minutes before going out and depositing it.”
The security process
Once FIDE had agreed to a live broadcast of the event, the security mechanism to ensure fairplay had to be perfect. The one in place at the venue now is five-layer system. First the players are ushered from the elevator into their lounges, which is where the process begins before they head into the playing hall.
First, they are made to walk through a metal detector, the kind that you see in most public places. It’s such a basic apparatus, Goh says, that it shouldn’t even really count as a layer of security. Then there’s a non-linear junction detector, that can detect electronic devices on a person, even if they’re switched off.
The players are then scanned thermally, and then by a device that scans for magnets on their person, before heading into the playing hall. The fifth layer is another security device which the players are put through after the end of each game.
Both camps were informed of the arrangements well in advance and were said to be completely satisfied with all the arrangements that were made.
What about the side events?
Playing chess against a former world champion like Viswanathan Anand? Meeting one of the famous chess streamers like Eric Rosen? Having masterclasses from Grandmasters like Alexandra Kosteniuk and Anna Muzychuk? Singapore has you covered if you’re a chess fan who’s paid for a ticket. Obviously sitting in the playing hall throughout the four-plus hours of each game isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. So, the fanzone has been filled with activity on every playing day so far and has been a big success.
During the matches, there are a set of chess boards for anyone who wants to play. Otherwise, fans can just sit on a beanbag and watch the live stream with commentary to understand the intricate details of the games. This was an important aspect for the LOC to get right, because they wanted the fans to come back on multiple days, rather than it just being a one-off experience for them.
