Round 1 of the FIDE Chess World Cup 2025 will commence on November 1 in Goa. There will be 16 Indians in action on Saturday, including Women's World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh. Deshmukh received a wild card and will be hoping to have a good campaign.
D Gukesh is the top seed, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa are the second and third seeds. Meanwhile, the top 50 players have been given a bye into the second round.
Also Read: FIDE Chess World Cup 2025: Format, schedule, live streaming, telecast – All you need to know
Also berths for the 2026 Candidates are stake! The top three players will quaify for the tournament next year, which is a qualifier for a the World C'ship showdown vs Gukesh.
The Indian Round 1 pairings are:
GM Kazybek Nogerbek (KAZ) - GM Raja Rithvik R
IM Harshavardhan G B - GM Mustafa Yilmaz (TUR)
IM Steven Rojas Salas (PER) - GM S L Narayanan
{{/usCountry}}IM Steven Rojas Salas (PER) - GM S L Narayanan
{{/usCountry}}GM Pranav Venkatesh - Ala Eddine Boulrens (ALG)
GM Iniyan Pa - GM Dylan Isidro Berdayes Ason (CUB)
GM Max Warmerdam (NED) - GM Lalit Rohit
GM Xiongjian Peng (CHN) - GM Diptayan Ghosh
GM Roberto Garcia Pantoja (COL) - GM Karthik Venkataraman
GM Raunak Sadhwani - GM Daniel Barrish (RSA)
GM Georg Meier (URU) - IM Neelash Saha
GM Leon Luke Mendonca - IM Shixu Wang B (CHN)
GM Surya Sekhar Ganguly - GM Ahmad Ahmadzada (AZE)
GM Divya Deshmukh - GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (GRE)
GM Pranesh M - IM Satbek Akhmedinov (KAZ)
GM Mateusz Bartel (POL) - IM Aronyak Ghosh
GM Andy Woodward (USA) - IM Himal Gusain
The tournament is an eight-round knockout event, and the losing players of the two semifinals will face each other for a third-place finish. Each round will also have a classical time limit on the first two days, and tie-breaks will be added on the third day if needed.