Out of 78 matches in round one of the 2025 FIDE World Cup, 20 will go to rapid and blitz tiebreaks on Monday. The upset of the day was IM Shixu Wang‘s (2402) match win against GM Leon Mendonca (2620). There were just two other cases of the lower-rated player winning their match outright: GM Felix Blohberger (2513) won against GM Constantin Lupulescu (2577), and GM Martin Petrov (2540) beat GM Krikor Mekhitarian (2545).
This is a flash report. The full article, including game analysis, interviews, and photographs, will be added to this page soon.
Round one tiebreaks will take place on Monday, November 3, starting at 4:30 a.m. ET / 10:30 a.m. CET / 3:00 p.m. IST.
The top 50 seeds receive a bye for round one and start the tournament on Tuesday in round two. GM Gukesh Dommaraju, though he is number nine in the world by rating, will be seeded as number one as the world champion.
Tiebreak Matches
| Board | Player 1 | Player 2 | Winner Will Face |
| 1 | Robert Hovhannisyan | Kavin Mohan | Raunak Sadhwani |
| 2 | Daniil Yuffa | Shiyam Thavandiran | Jeffery Xiong |
| 3 | S L Narayanan | Steven Rojas | Nikita Vitugov |
| 4 | Cristobal Henriquez | Uurtsaikh Agibileg | Alexey Sarana |
| 5 | Aldiyar Ansat | Jorge Cori | Shant Sargsyan |
| 6 | Karen Grigoryan | Ahmed Adly | Matthias Bluebaum |
| 7 | Alisher Suleymenov | Arturs Neiksans | Jorden Van Foreest |
| 8 | Jegor Lashkin | Tin Jingyao | Sam Sevian |
| 9 | R Babu Lalith | Max Warmerdam | Awonder Liang |
| 10 | Faustino Oro | Ante Brkic | Vidit Gujrathi |
| 11 | Aronyak Ghosh | Mateusz Bartel | Levon Aronian |
| 12 | Luis Paulo Supi | Sion Galaviz | Richard Raport |
| 13 | Jose Cardoso | Baadur Jobava | Liem Le |
| 14 | Diptayan Ghosh | Xiongjian Peng | Ian Nepomniachtchi |
| 15 | Diego Flores | Denis Makhnyov | Nodirbek Abdusattorov |
| 16 | Sergei Lobanov | Kacper Piorun | Wei Yi |
| 17 | Titas Stremavicus | Sebasatian Bogner | Wesley So |
| 18 | Emre Can | Bojan Maksimovic | Anish Giri |
| 19 | Temur Kuybokarov | Jan Subelj | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu |
| 20 | Raja Rithvik | Kazybek Nogerbek | Gukesh Dommaraju |
GM Rafael Leitao‘s analysis for our Game of the Day will be added here.
You can watch the event on Chess.com/TV. You can also enjoy the show on Chess24, on Twitch, or YouTube. Games from the event can be viewed on our events page.
The 2025 FIDE World Cup, which takes place from November 1 to 26 in Goa, India, determines three spots in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. It is a 206-player single-elimination knockout tournament with eight rounds. Each match consists of two classical games followed by rapid and blitz tiebreaks if needed. The prize fund is $2 million.
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