If you were hoping for upsets, blunders, and dramatic twists of fate, game one of round two in the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup did not disappoint. On the one hand, we saw several pre-tournament favorites win, including GMs Lei Tingjie, Nana Dzagnidze, Valentina Gunina, Koneru Humpy, Vaishali Rameshbabu, and Tan Zhongyi. Other favorites, described later, were either held to draws or even lost.
The upset of the day was 19-year-old Kazakh IM Meruert Kamalidenova‘s (rated 2323) win over GM Aleksandra Goryachkina (2533), the 2023 Women’s World Cup winner. GM Irina Krush suffered the blunder of the day and perhaps of her career, hanging her queen against IM Carissa Yip in time trouble.
The second classical game of round two is on Thursday, July 10, starting at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CEST / 4:30 p.m. IST.
Kazakh Teenager Rises
Kamalidenova, who earned her IM title last year, is a name we continue to hear in recent times. In the 2010s, she’d won several youth championships, including the 2019 World Youth Chess Championship for girls under 14. More recently, though, she played on board two for the Kazakh team that won silver at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary.
Goryachkina is the world number-seven among women (after this game, number-eight on the live rating list) and would be Russia’s number-one except that she currently plays under the FIDE flag. Although Goryachkina has already qualified for the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates through the 2024-2025 FIDE Women’s Grand Prix, it would be a bitter disappointment if she were eliminated in her very first match.
As for the game itself, the Kazakh player generated a fearsome attack against the super-solid Berlin Defense. 33.Bxf5! was a brilliant execution that led to a superior endgame, and she converted the win with bishop and two pawns against rook, despite Goryachkina’s resourceful defense and some missed chances. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the game in-depth below, one he praises as “a real masterpiece” in the notes.
Until this game, Kamalidenova’s score against Goryachkina wasn’t too good: three losses and one draw (only one of those games was in classical chess, the others in rapid and blitz). But that one draw came right before this game, as she pointed out. About this first win, she said, “It’s okay, I think, for me. Just, I am enjoying playing, that’s why I was thinking about today, I need to show my best and to play good and tomorrow we will see.” Check out her interview and game analysis.
Nerves Lead To Many Blunders
On many of the other boards, we saw nerves on full display. A single game loss could mean the end of the tournament in this format, and we saw many costly mistakes on the first day of round two.
The tragedy of Krush’s queen blunder is compounded by the fact that she was the one pressing for the win a few moves before it happened, but the game spun out of control with the players under five minutes. Indeed, Krush had several paths to victory, but when Yip escaped, a queen trade would have still led to an ending she could have at least held (or even 38.Qd1 was possible).
Yip commented on the cruelty of fate in this all-American matchup, taking place on the other side of the world. She said, “I feel like I know her quite well as a player,” listing several tournaments where they’d faced one another. “She was my teammate for several world teams and Olympiads. I also know her pretty well as a person… It’s kind of funny that we came all this way just to play each other twice.”
It’s kind of funny that we came all this way just to play each other twice.
—Carissa Yip
Yip is just coming off the high of earning her second GM norm as the winner of the 2025 Cairns Cup. Things just went her way, as she said, “I got very lucky at the Cairns Cup in a lot of my games… it’s just one tournament, but I’m hoping to just sort of continue improving myself.”
Another jaw-dropping turnaround occurred in the game of another American, IM Alice Lee. Early in the day, it looked like she was going to land a quick knockout as she achieved a winning position by move 17. There, a knight sacrifice on b2 would have lit up the board like July Fourth fireworks, and it was the only winning move.
But after 17…Qe6?, played in about one minute when she had 55, all of the advantage slipped. It was the last time she’d have an advantage, and on move 44, she failed to find the only move 44…Nc8! to hold, instead playing 44…Rh5+?? in less than a minute when she had 35.
IM Vantika Agrawal scored a big upset against former World Champion Anna Ushenina after one incorrect knight jump by her opponent. 30…Ne4 would have held the position, as the knight provides counterplay against the f2- and g3-squares, while 30…Nd3??, played in the game, looked like it did the same—except, well, it didn’t. White won with surprising ease, and the Indian star found the clean 35.Ne6! to put it away, smooth as a knife through butter.
Unlike her opponent, Vantika played in the first round, but she said it was a good warmup: “The first round gives more confidence and more motivation to play better in the next rounds.” She was on the gold-winning Indian women’s team at the 2024 Chess Olympiad, where she had the biggest jump of anyone on that team—+22 points—and scored individual gold on board four. Since then, she said she’s been playing in strong open tournaments and that “I think I have learned a lot and I hope I can use that experience here.”
Anyone who’s played classical chess themselves knows the physical stamina it requires. In the late endgame, we saw slips and hallucinations.
IM Polina Shuvalova scored a fortunate win against Azerbaijani number-one IM Gulnar Mammadova after the cold shower of 48.Rb4?? Rxb7!, tapping into the power of the advanced h-pawn. White’s pride and joy, the passed b-pawn, was suddenly gone, and so was the game.
We saw another higher-rated player, Humpy, score an unlikely win against WIM Afruza Khamdamova. In the endgame around move 23, the commentators were even talking about how it was White who should be pressing for the win. It later petered out, but 33…Bb8?? hung the a-pawn for no apparent reason, and just like that, the game was over. As as result, Humpy needs just a draw with White in the next game to take the match.
Many Favorites Were Held, Other Missed Opportunities, & Georgian Excellence
While I listed several grandmasters who managed to win, there were several others who were held to draws. They were:
IM Nurgyul Salimova, who qualified for the 2024 Women’s Candidates by finishing second in the 2023 Women’s World Cup, spoiled a golden opportunity against GM Bela Khotenashvili after playing an otherwise wonderful game. Often, just believing you can win is a significant part of doing it, and indeed protecting the pawn with 45.Nb4! would have not only kept the game going but could have won it. Instead, we saw wood get chopped.
In the only grandmaster versus grandmaster encounter, Antoaneta Stefanova was winning for most of the game against Elina Danielian. It was an extremely sharp game in the French Defense, but finally ended in a draw by perpetual check. But (!) there was one final moment where White still had a chance to win, as after 55…Qd2? 56.Kh3! the white king would decisively march up the board.
Several underdogs who flourished on the previous day continued to flourish.
WIM Umina Omonova, who delivered the upset against IM Sophie Milliet the day before, held Polish number-one IM Alina Kashlinskaya to a draw. WIM Priyanka K, too, held IM Klaudia Kulon to a draw. IM Anahita Zahedifar had a rambunctious game against Gunina, where both players were winning at various points, but lost.
Georgian GM Dzagnidze, who squeezed out a win in the rook endgame against IM Daria Charochkina, spoke to WIM Charlize Van Zyl about the significance of the tournament taking place in Georgia, a historic powerhouse for women’s chess. She said, “I think Georgian’s chess future is quite bright, if you consider the fact that we have very talented girls who are participating here, they both won their first rounds. I’m following them and I like them very much.”
I think Georgian chess future is quite bright.
—Nana Dzagnidze
She was referring to WFM Kesaria Mgeladze and WFM Anastasia Kirtadze, who did get through the first round but, unfortunately, both lost their games on Wednesday. “I think the girls are strong, so we will see,” she concluded. As for herself, Dzagnidze summed up what success would be in five words: “To qualify for the Candidates.”
It’s not all about the youngsters, however, as 41-year-old Georgian IM Lela Javakhishvili reminded us. Against IM Lela Javakhishvili, she demonstrated a model game with her handling of the bishop pair.
Well, that’s a lot of the games and results, but far from all of them. You can see all of the results on our Events page, where you can follow your favorite players. Game two, on Thursday, will decide who gets eliminated next and who will survive to the tiebreaks.
How to watch?
The 2025 FIDE Women’s World Cup takes place at the Grand Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Batumi, Georgia. It is a 107-player tournament with a single-elimination knockout format and a classical time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment per move from the first move. Each round consists of two games at the classical time control followed by a tiebreak in faster time controls in case the scores are tied.
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