The Ukrainian eSports club NAVI has unexpectedly added a chess team to its roster, which includes three well-known grandmasters.
The first NAVI chess roster includes grandmasters Nodirbek Abdusattarov (Uzbekistan, 6th in the world ranking, 20 years old), Wesley So (Philippines-USA, 11th in the ranking, 31 years old) and Alexander Bortnik (Ukraine, 166th in the ranking, 28 years old).
The NAVI chess team is already participating in the first of two online Chessable Masters championships with a prize pool of $150,000. Wesley Seo is one of the 8 invited players, while the rest have to go through qualification. The second tournament of the series will be held in mid-May 2025.
The top twelve players of the CCT ranking will be invited to the series finals, which will take place as part of the largest esports festival Esports World Cup in Saudi Arabia. The participants will compete for $1 500 000.
Chess was included in the program of the Esports World Cup for the first time, a major tournament that has been funded by the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Wealth Fund since 2024. Last year, esports athletes competed in 22 disciplines, and in 2025, their number increased to 25.
We have already written about the history of NAVI, the most famous esports team in Ukraine.