FIDE World Cup 30 October - 27 November 2025

[LawrenceCooper]

Draws for both Mickey & Nikita so tie-breaks tomorrow.

[LawrenceCooper]

Eliminated players included Nepo & Wesley So, the latter resigning in a drawn position, having missed a stalemate trick at the end of the line.

[Matt Mackenzie]

the latter resigning in a drawn position, having missed a stalemate trick at the end of the line

Whoops!

[Mick Norris]

I see Shak lost and is headed for tiebreaks, as is Oro v Vidit

Jobava out as is Ivanchuk; Navara, Anton, Abasov, Aravindh, Murzin, Woodward, Robson, Mishra too

[NickFaulks]

I have belatedly taken a look at the tiebreak regulations, and in particular those for the Armageddon game.

"4. 7. 5. If the score is level after the games in Article 4.7.4, then one sudden death game shall be played. The sudden death game shall
be the following:
• White shall have 4 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1.
• Both players shall submit a time bid – specifying how much starting time they are willing to play with as Black, also with
a 2-second increment per move, starting from move 1. A bid cannot be more than 4 minutes. The player who submits the
lowest time wins the bid and plays with Black. If the players make exactly the same bid, Black starts with that amount of
time; a drawing of lots shall determine the colours.
• If the sudden death game is drawn, Black will win the match."

Is this the first time that the bidding approach has been used? It is not a new idea, having been recommended years ago by Stewart Reuben, with my support, as an approach which would eliminate argument about the fairness of different time differentials, but it was always rejected as being too arcane.

If it does come into play, as I expect it will at some point, I hope we shall see the players' bids.

Why may a bid not be more than 4 minutes? Are they worried that the players will conspire to each bid 12 hours?

[LawrenceCooper]

I have belatedly taken a look at the tiebreak regulations, and in particular those for the Armageddon game.

"4. 7. 5. If the score is level after the games in Article 4.7.4, then one sudden death game shall be played. The sudden death game shall
be the following:
• White shall have 4 minutes + 2 seconds increment per move, starting from move 1.
• Both players shall submit a time bid – specifying how much starting time they are willing to play with as Black, also with
a 2-second increment per move, starting from move 1. A bid cannot be more than 4 minutes. The player who submits the
lowest time wins the bid and plays with Black. If the players make exactly the same bid, Black starts with that amount of
time; a drawing of lots shall determine the colours.
• If the sudden death game is drawn, Black will win the match."

Is this the first time that the bidding approach has been used? It is not a new idea, having been recommended years ago by Stewart Reuben, with my support, as an approach which would eliminate argument about the fairness of different time differentials, but it was always rejected as being too arcane.

If it does come into play, as I expect it will at some point, I hope we shall see the players' bids.

Why may a bid not be more than 4 minutes? Are they worried that the players will conspire to each bid 12 hours?

Bidding is common in online armageddons but it could be the first time FIDE have used it.

[NickFaulks]

Bidding is common in online armageddons but it could be the first time FIDE have used it.

Online being of little interest to me, I didn't know that. What is the median bid?

[LawrenceCooper]

Bidding is common in online armageddons but it could be the first time FIDE have used it.

Online being of little interest to me, I didn't know that. What is the median bid?

As I'm struggling to remember I've linked to one example: https://simonm.substack.com/p/armageddo ... ders-guide Admittedly that's rapid though so not so relevant to this thread.

[Ian Thompson]

Bidding is common in online armageddons but it could be the first time FIDE have used it.

It was used in US chess championship playoffs many years ago with one player getting 60 minutes and the other whatever lesser time they bid to only need to draw. Quite difficult to know what to bid I would think when your opponent will get quite a long time to play the game if your bid is the lower.

While seeing if I could find a reference to this, I came across an interesting alternative where the maximum total time to break the tie is known fairly accurately, but the number of games is variable:

1. Black starts game 1 with, say, 60 minutes + 3 seconds increment
2. Both players bid for how much less time than an hour they are prepared to have to get the advantage of White in the game.
3. If game 1 is drawn, game 2 is played with colours reversed and each player starting with whatever time they had remaining at the end of game 1.
4. If game 2 is drawn, game 3 is played with colours reversed and each player starting with whatever time they had remaining at the end of game 2.
5. This continues until someone wins a game.

[NickFaulks]

While seeing if I could find a reference to this, I came across an interesting alternative where the maximum total time to break the tie is known fairly accurately, but the number of games is variable:

1. Black starts game 1 with, say, 60 minutes + 3 seconds increment
2. Both players bid for how much less time than an hour they are prepared to have to get the advantage of White in the game.
3. If game 1 is drawn, game 2 is played with colours reversed and each player starting with whatever time they had remaining at the end of game 1.
4. If game 2 is drawn, game 3 is played with colours reversed and each player starting with whatever time they had remaining at the end of game 2.
5. This continues until someone wins a game.

I like it!

What drugs were the person who invented that using?

[ThomasEvans]

Bidding is common in online armageddons but it could be the first time FIDE have used it.

I've seen it in the regulations of some FIDE tournaments this year (e.g. the World Rapid & Blitz Teams Championship), but it may not have been actually used yet (and I'd be surprised if we went the entire World Cup without seeing one). The usual FIDE "final" tiebreak seems to have changed every year for the past few years - it was the 5v4 armageddon, then after they had a tendency to descend into chaos we had the 3+2 indefinite games, and then after the Carlsen-Nepo debacle at the World Blitz we've gone to bidding armageddons (but with an increment, so hopefully less chaos).

While seeing if I could find a reference to this, I came across an interesting alternative where the maximum total time to break the tie is known fairly accurately, but the number of games is variable:

1. Black starts game 1 with, say, 60 minutes + 3 seconds increment
2. Both players bid for how much less time than an hour they are prepared to have to get the advantage of White in the game.
3. If game 1 is drawn, game 2 is played with colours reversed and each player starting with whatever time they had remaining at the end of game 1.
4. If game 2 is drawn, game 3 is played with colours reversed and each player starting with whatever time they had remaining at the end of game 2.
5. This continues until someone wins a game.

Tournament draughts has something similar, known as superblitz (I don't think they involve bidding though, typically it's something like 5+2 for both players).

[Nick Burrows]

[Event "?"] [Site "?"] [Date "????.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Cori, Jorge"] [Black "Sargsyan, Shant"] [Result "*"] [PlyCount "77"] 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. e3 Bb4 5. Qc2 O-O 6. Nd5 Re8 7. Qf5 d6 8. Nxf6+ gxf6 9. Qh5 e4 10. a3 exf3 11. axb4 Re5 12. Qxf3 Nxb4 13. Qd1 Bf5 14. d3 d5 15. g4 Bg6 16. f4 dxc4 17. fxe5 fxe5 18. h4 cxd3 19. Kf2 Nc2 20. Ra4 b5 21. h5 bxa4 22. hxg6 hxg6 23. Bxd3 Nb4 24. Be4 Qf6+ 25. Qf3 Qxf3+ 26. Kxf3 Rd8 27. Ke2 Nd5 28. Bc2 Rb8 29. Bxa4 Rb4 30. Bc6 Ne7 31. Bd7 Kg7 32. Rd1 a5 33. Rd3 Kf6 34. Rc3 c6 35. Kf3 Kg5 36. e4+ Kh4 37. g5 Rd4 38. Be3 Rxd7 39. Rc1 1-0

[NickFaulks]

Second fairly unexciting draw for Mickey.

[NickFaulks]

Praggnanandhaa has sacced a piece for nothing and is surely out.

edit : But no, out of the blue he got a completely unnecessary perpetual.

[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

Bit surprised you are surprised Chris. In this day and age there are an awful lot of players who all but the most die hard of chess fans have never heard of. But thanks for reminding us, and I will take a look.

I suppose it is a bit like the FA Cup. More interest shown in the later stages.

I had only heard of about 12 of the above 40 players, FWIW.