Chess World Cup 2025: Round 1 pairings for Indian players - Divya Deshmukh, Pranav V in action

Chess World Cup 2025: 16 Indians, including Divya Deshmukh, will be in action in Round 1, on Saturday.

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.

Divya Deshmukh will face GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis in Round 1. (PTI)

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 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

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.