FIDE World Cup 30 October - 27 November 2025

[LawrenceCooper]

Sindarov also through with a draw. Wei Yi likely to win, Donchenko should as well but the evaluation swings in recent moves make me hesitate slightly.

[NickFaulks]

Donchenko should as well but the evaluation swings in recent moves make me hesitate slightly.

I saw those too, I think they are just wrong. With free engines, sometimes you get what you pay for.

[LawrenceCooper]

Donchenko should as well but the evaluation swings in recent moves make me hesitate slightly.

I saw those too, I think they are just wrong. With free engines, sometimes you get what you pay for.

The commentators agreed though. After 50 b5 I couldn't see a win but maybe others can.

[NickFaulks]

Wei Yi is through, so we may yet see two seeded players reach the quarter-finals. If so, they will play each other.

And so it goes.

[NickFaulks]

The commentators agreed though. After 50 b5 I couldn't see a win but maybe others can.

Oh, my goodness, I was cooking at that point and missed it. I was talking about when the eval slipped to -2.6 or so. 50. b5 is nasty!

[LawrenceCooper]

Revised draw:

Sindarov v Harikrishna/Martinez
Yakuobboev v Liem Le/Donchenko

Dubov/Shankland v Grebnev/Esipenko
Wei Yi v Erigiasi

[LawrenceCooper]

The commentators agreed though. After 50 b5 I couldn't see a win but maybe others can.

Oh, my goodness, I was cooking at that point and missed it. I was talking about when the eval slipped to -2.6 or so. 50. b5 is nasty!

The queen against rook & 4 passed pawns would have been an interesting one to watch.

Heartbreak for Donchenko losing the win after 69...Ke2 when all three moves to the g file would have won.

[Jonathan Rogers]

The commentators agreed though. After 50 b5 I couldn't see a win but maybe others can.

Oh, my goodness, I was cooking at that point and missed it. I was talking about when the eval slipped to -2.6 or so. 50. b5 is nasty!

and yet a bit odd that White missed it, since all his remaining chances seem to relate to that passed pawn.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Aronian's exit means that all three qualifiers will be new candidates, and thus there will be four new candidates overall. A sign of how competitive and fast-moving the chess world is, or (if they do badly) how flawed the knockout system is as a qualifier?

Still depends on who they are, surely. If they are the higher rated players, arguably the system has still done its job.

[Mick Norris]

Aronian blundered and is knocked out by Arjun. Yakubboev beat Sargassian.

Pity about Aronian but good to see Yakubboev through

[Mick Norris]

Aronian's exit means that all three qualifiers will be new candidates, and thus there will be four new candidates overall. A sign of how competitive and fast-moving the chess world is, or (if they do badly) how flawed the knockout system is as a qualifier?

Still depends on who they are, surely. If they are the higher rated players, arguably the system has still done its job.

The system has produced some Candidates that haven't been competitive, but the winners of the World Cup have all been really strong players

[Jonathan Rogers]

Perhaps it doesn't help that a recent qualifier from the World Cup was the semi-finalist Abasov. Perhaps a more diligent researcher than I can look at the performances in the Candidates of all WC qualifiers - I don't know whether we have enough data yet to compare this route with the more recent route of qualifiers from grand open swisses?

[IM Jack Rudd]

There've probably been too few Candidates' tournaments for any comparisons to be statistically significant.

[Nick Burrows]

Perhaps it doesn't help that a recent qualifier from the World Cup was the semi-finalist Abasov. Perhaps a more diligent researcher than I can look at the performances in the Candidates of all WC qualifiers

I think Gelfand and Karjakin both won the candidates after qualifying via the World Cup in 2009 and 2015 respectively.

[Mick Norris]

Gelfand and Karjakin both won the World Cup though

The qualifiers who didn't reach the final were 2023 Caruana and Abasov (when Magnus won but didn't enter the Candidates), 2011 Ivanchuk, with in 2005 10 places available for the Candidates matches under a different format with the 11th place finisher getting 1 of those