Gukesh to lead India challenge at FIDE World Cup 2025

The entire Olympiad-winning squad will once again look to assert the country’s supremacy on the world stage

Hyderabad: A strong Indian contingent, led by World Champion Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju, and the entire Olympiad-winning squad will once again look to assert the country’s supremacy on the world stage as they compete for the coveted FIDE World Cup 2025 crown in Goa starting from Saturday.

In this edition, GM Gukesh Dommaraju, GM Arjun Erigaisi and GM R Praggnanandhaa have been given the top three seedings, while every 10th chess player who has qualified for this 206-strong field will be an Indian. Dutch GM Anish Giri will be the highest-ranked foreign player at four.

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Two-time former champion Levon Aronian of the USA will be the only past winner in action in Goa and has been seeded 15th in the competition. Meanwhile, reigning champion GM Magnus Carlsen won’t be defending his title, while 2021 winner GM Jan-Krzystof Duda of Poland has opted out.

The FIDE World Cup 2025, which carries a prize purse of $2,000,000, will follow a single-elimination knock-out format in which each round will have two classical games followed by a tiebreaker if required. The tie-breaker will consist of two Rapid Games while the single-bidding Armageddon will be employed if no result is achieved at the end of the Rapid games.

The event also offers three spots for the Candidates 2026, which will decide Gukesh’s opponent for the next World Championship cycle.

Among the other participants, GM Anish Giri and GM Matthias Bluebaum of Germany have already qualified for the Candidates event through the FIDE Swiss Tour and if any of them or Gukesh finish in the top-three the Candidates spot will be awarded to the next player in the standings.

The legendary Viswanathan Anand won the first two editions of the World Cup played in Shenyang, China and Hyderabad, India. These two editions followed a round-robin-cum knock-out format.

But since 2005, the World Cup follows a single round elimination system with the total number of players increased to 206 since 2021 with the top-50 ranked players getting a bye in the first round.

Third seed Praggananandhaa had reached the summit clash in the last edition in 2023 and will look to go one step further on home turf. He is likely to open his campaign against 126th-ranked Jan Subelj of Slovakia in the second round with compatriot Raunak Sadhwani to be a potential third-round opponent.

Gukesh’s second round opponent is likely to be Kazybek Nogerbek of Kazakhstan while Arjun may face Krikor Mekhitarian of Brazil at the same stage.

Apart from this trio, India’s hopes will rely on Vidit Gujrathi, P Harikrishna, Aravindh Chithambaram, Nihal Sarin, Karthikeyan Murali among others and all of them will be in action only in the second round.

FIDE Women’s World Cup champion Divya Deshmukh of India will be the only woman in the field after she received a wild card entry. The Nagpur-born player will open her campaign against Greek GM Stamatis Kourkoulos Arditis and if she clears this hurdle, compatriot Nihal Sarin awaits her in the next round.

Every player losing in the first round will earn $3500 while the winner will take home a prize purse of $120,000.