PGL shortens Bucharest tournament due to scheduling conflict with ESL event

Tournament operator PGL has announced that the upcoming PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 Counter-Strike 2 event will end a day earlier than originally announced – on Saturday, November 1.

The organizers made this decision in hopes of attracting teams that will participate in IEM Chengdu 2025, which kicks off on November 3. The participants of the Chinese competition include most of the top 10 squads in the world ranking.

Initially, teams could not participate in both tournaments at once – rosters that would have reached the top 4 at PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 would not have made it to Chengdu in time for the start of the event.

ESL also made it clear to teams that withdraw from IEM Chengdu 2025 at the last minute would get banned from the next event in the series, IEM Krakow 2026. According to HLTV, this forced several squads to reconsider their participation in PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 and focus on IEM Chengdu 2025, despite ESL giving teams a two-day window to withdraw without penalty after Valve intervened.

Origin: x.com