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‘Divya Deshmukh and Javokhir Sindarov were both among…’: Dutch GM Anish Giri makes huge Chess World Cup claim
Weighing in on both World Cups this year, Dutch GM Anish Giri pointed out that the tournament's format makes it possible for upsets.
In 2025, Javokhir Sindarov became the youngest World Cup winner in the open category, and Divya Deshmukh became the first Indian Women's World Cup champion. Deshmukh is also the youngest-ever women's World Cup winner. Sindarov and Divya weren't even among the top 14 seeds for their tournaments, so their victories came as a surprise for many.
Weighing in on both World Cups this year, Dutch GM Anish Giri pointed out that the tournament's format makes it possible for upsets.
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Speaking to TimesofIndia.com, Giri said, "First of all, 15 and 16 seeds are not the middle at all. It’s the top. So Divya and Sindarov were both among the favourites, but perhaps within the favourites, they were not at the very forefront."
"For example, Arjun (Erigaisi) and Vincent Keymer and Gukesh (Dommaraju), obviously Praggnanandhaa (Rameshbabu), were more favoured, but Sindarov was not a surprise. He is an elite player. And the same goes for Divya.
"I think it’s a coincidence, frankly. I think if you ran this tournament 100 times, the top 10 participants would score more victories than the people ranked between 10 and 20."
The experienced GM also pointed out that the gap between GMs is very small, in accordance with their ratings. "I do think that ratings are still there for a reason, but the gap is too small now to show in the short run. And when you have a two-game match, you can play someone rated from the top 100 in the world, but you can’t tell the difference in a two-game match," he said.
"You need more games if you want to really be reliable. If we played the World Cup 1,000 times, Sindarov would win 20 times, and Praggnanandhaa would win 40 times. But we just ran it once, and it happened this way. But it’s fine this way. I mean, still, in the end, the great player wins; I’m just saying the upsets are more likely," he added.
