FIDE World Cup 30 October - 27 November 2025

[NickFaulks]

I hadn't realised that Adams is playing, he has tended to avoid such events of late (I think).

I don't believe he is very fond of Central Asia, but the World Cup format suits him well and this one is at a very pleasant destination.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Nona's successor as WWC Maia Chiburdanidze had some very worthy results in strong (otherwise) male tournaments too - though this does regrettably not include the strongest event MC ever played in (Linares 1988) where she finished in a clear last place.

[Rob Coles]

Since Vera Menchik and apart from Judith Polgar, how many female players have done so well in a top level open event? Hou Yifan in Gibraltar and ( I think I remember ) one other event. Any others?

Aleksandra Goryachkina at the same event - same score and similar PR. It seems likely that the nature of the FIDE elite women's events mean that the strongest players form an underrated pool.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Was that Gibraltar 2012 where Hou Yifan (only 17!) tied for first with Nigel Short?

https://en.chessbase.com/post/throwback ... short-2012

That was a TPR of 2872!

As well as also scoring 5/11 at the 2025 Grand Swiss (2652 performance), Goryachkina has performed at over 2700 in the Russian Championship Higher League.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Goryachkina

Some of Goryachkina's best performances have come in the open Russian Championship Higher League where she scored 5½/9 in both 2018 and 2020 for performance ratings of 2713 and 2656, and the Russian Team Championship Higher League where she scored 6/8 in 2019 for a performance rating of 2670. She also had a performance rating of 2666 when she won the 2019 Candidates Tournament with a score of 9½/14.

[Mick Norris]

TWIC

The FIDE World Cup takes place in Goa, India, Sat 1st to Wed 26th Nov 2025.

Players include: World Champion Gukesh, Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa, Giri, So, Keymer, Wei Yi, Abdusattorov, Mamedyarov, Niemann, MVL, Nepomniachtchi, Le, Rapport, Aronian etc.

It is a seven round knockout but the top 50 players only enter the competition in round 2 alongside the 78 winners of Round 1. The top three finishers will qualify for the Candidates tournament although players such as Gukesh and Giri and Caruana don't require this and the extra place will be awarded to "another path" in the qualification system.

The Women's World Cup event that regularly takes place alongside was instead held in July as a separate tournament which I think was better for both.

Official website and Preview

“I’m really excited and looking forward to playing in the World Cup. Anywhere in India is great of course, but I have some nice memories of Goa as I played some junior events there,” declared Gukesh D, current World Champion, one of the favourites, seeded straight into round two.

For the first time since 2002, the FIDE World Cup returns to Indian soil. On that occasion, Viswanathan Anand, the legend from Chennai, defeated Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the two-game final held in Hyderabad, a victory that helped cement India’s emergence as a major force in world chess.

More than two decades later, India hosts the event from a position of unprecedented strength. The country now boasts D. Gukesh, the reigning World Champion; Olympiad team titles in both the Open and Women’s sections; and Divya Deshmukh, the current Women’s World Cup winner and the only female participant in this year’s World Cup. Add to that a remarkable generation of rising stars — Arjun Erigaisi, R. Praggnanandhaa, Nihal Sarin, and others — and India’s chess renaissance will be on full display in Goa.

“I’m looking forward to playing the World Cup. It’s a great event and a lot of fun. I’ve played a lot of them, and I was actually very near to qualifying once. Although I played very well that year, I still remember losing a semi-final to Peter Svidler. It’s definitely a very tricky qualification path,” Giri said, after winning in Uzbekistan

[NickFaulks]

Official website

and Divya Deshmukh, the current Women’s World Cup winner and the only female participant in this year’s World Cup

Deshmukh is clearly intent upon making an impression in open competition, all credit to her. This is particularly bold in a knockout, where she is seeded to depart after the first round.

If she can get past Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis, her next opponent will be Nihal Sarin.

[Paul Heaton]

I see the final round tie break/closing ceremony is the same day as the first round of the London Chess Classic. Are the 5 players in both (Shankland, Misra, Adams, Vitiugov, Theodorou) already writing off their chances of making the final 4? Presumably there is arrangement to rush to London and play the first round on the rest day.

[NickFaulks]

At least the time difference would be the right way!

[Leonard Barden]

Adams playing round one NOW

https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-worl ... c/xtYeh254

[Paul Cooksey]

A slightly odd broadcast in that you need to scroll down quite a way past the rating mismatches to find the interesting boards.

I can't imagine GM Brkic was delighted with his paring against IM Oro!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Cannot see any upsets so far (am not counting draws as an upset).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Mickey won. Divya lost. Oro drew.

That sounds like an attempted haiku.

[Geoff Chandler]

I. Cheparinov A. Roa, Round one (White to play)

4rk2/1n2r1p1/p2p1nQN/1q1PN3/1P6/6P1/5P1P/2R1R1K1 w - - 1 32

Amazing! Not the actual move 32.Qf7+ it is amazing how even after seeing 100's of similar mates seeing it again brings some kind of pleasure. Is that us relating to the satisfaction we know the player of the White pieces would be feeling.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2995261

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Bit surprised to see the lack of interest in the earlt results.

20 Round 1 matches have gone to the tie-breaks.

(Mickey Adams went through, Divya lost, and Oro is in the tie-breaks.)

Tie-breaks:

Nogerbek-Rithvik
Cori-Aldiyar
Narayanan-Rojas
Neiksans-Suleymenov
Henríquez Villagra-Agibileg
Flores-Makhnev
Bogner-Stremavičius
Warmerdam-Lalith Babu
Ghosh-Peng
Jobava-Cardoso Cardoso
Yuffa-Thavandiran
Adly-Grigoryan
Can-Maksimović
Subelj-Kuybokarov
Hovhannisyan-Kavin
Brkić-Oro
Supi-Radamantys Galaviz
Piorun-Lobanov
Tin-Lashkin
Bartel-Ghosh

Nice report here on the first games of Round 1:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/world-cup-2025-r1g1

Tournament brackets here:

https://worldcup2025.fide.com/tournament-bracket/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_World_Cup_2025

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A reminder that the tie-breaks for Round 1 start at 09:35 GMT. Potentially 9 games each if they all go to Sudden Death (unlikely, I know). Maximum of 180 games. Should be all over by 3pm GMT. Quite a lot of prize money at stake.