GM Levon Aronian continued his form from Las Vegas as he topped Group A of the Last Chance Qualifier for the 2025 Esports World Cup, while GMs Dmitry Andreikin, Vidit Gujrathi, and Daniil Dubov were all eliminated. GMs Alexey Sarana, Marc’Andria Maurizzi, and Jules Moussard also advanced, while in Group B GM Oleksandr Bortnyk won and was joined by GMs Nihal Sarin, Andrey Esipenko, and Ahmed Adly, who all kept their hopes of winning the $250,000 top prize in Riyadh alive.
Groups C and D of the Last Chance Qualifier are on Friday, July 25, starting at 10 a.m. ET / 16:00 CEST / 7:30 p.m. IST.
Chess Makes Its Debut In Esports World Cup
The Esports World Cup, taking place in Boulevard City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from July 7 to August 24, is a huge event, featuring over 2,000 players, 200 clubs, and a combined prize pool of over $70 million. For the first time chess will be featured, with world number-one GM Magnus Carlsen, representing Team Liquid alongside GMs Fabiano Caruana and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, a guest at the Opening Ceremony earlier this month.
Chat is this en passant?? #EWC2025 @PostMalone | @MagnusCarlsen | @chesscom https://t.co/qcakbKU0Ex pic.twitter.com/tXCl2j3o3v
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) July 10, 2025
The main chess event begins on Tuesday, July 29 and runs for four days, with a $1.5 million prize fund and $250,000 for first place. That will feature 16 players, initially divided into four groups of four players before the top-eight then compete in a knockout tournament, with all games played at 10 minutes for all moves with no increment. 12 of the players qualified from the leaderboard of the 2025 Champions Chess Tour.
The remaining four players will be decided in the Last Chance Qualifier at the venue, that runs July 24-26.
Praggnanandhaa, Giri Head Last Chance Qualifier In Riyadh
The Last Chance Qualifier has its own $50,000 prize fund, but the big prize is of course to take one of the four spots in the main event. It’s open to all, though if players aren’t sponsored by teams they need to pay their own expenses, apart from the winners of the Dream Hack Dallas 2025—GMs Bortnyk, Sarana, Aravindh Chithambaram, and Andrew Tang.
All games are played on Chess.com but onsite in the venue, with some unusual requirements for chess players.
Ok it’s crunch time, do I seriously have to buy a keyboard or is this some sort of a joke? @chesscom https://t.co/smQbUD64II
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) July 23, 2025
The keyboard saga has come to a happy end, thanks once again to Hans N.
If you wanna know, I can tell you how exactly he was able to help. pic.twitter.com/a4myzeiN5R
— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) July 24, 2025
The event starts with the 130+ players split into four groups, with each playing a seven-round Swiss open. The top four in each group then qualify for the Playoffs, a 16-player double-elimination knockout on the third day where the top-four will all make it through to the main event.
On each of the first two days two groups compete, and on the first day that meant Groups A and B.
Group A: Aronian Tops Group Of Death
The qualifiers unsurprisingly feature a large number of local players, but especially Group A was packed with far more top players than could take the four spots on offer.
Top of the list of participants was Aronian (Team Reject), the hottest man in chess after winning the $200,000 top prize in Las Vegas. He was also the player who had most narrowly failed to qualify via the Champions Chess Tour.
Aronian would keep his momentum going.
Levon arrives with his weapons of choice! #EsportsWorldCup pic.twitter.com/tZTXd3hxRD
— chess24 (@chess24com) July 24, 2025
An easy win in the first game was followed by a scare against teenage Indian IM Aarav Dengal in round two. At first Aronian was significantly worse, then it seemed he was going to be held to a potentially damaging draw, but one slip and the former world number-two took over and won the rook endgame.
After that Aronian never looked back, as he made a draw against Dubov before beating Andreikin and Vidit. Andreikin, who was the sole leader on 3/3, had seemed to be on top in the middlegame, but went for unnecessary tactics and then missed a crucial detail while playing 27…Ra5?.
A huge win for Aronian over leader Andreikin! https://t.co/yoN7bgwPuo#EsportsWorldCup pic.twitter.com/oHpqEdAGMB
— chess24 (@chess24com) July 24, 2025
Aronian’s fourth and final win came against Vidit. The Indian star had done some Puzzle Rush to warm up in the venue…
Getting some final reps in before the #EsportsWorldCup Last Chance Qualifiers 💪 @viditchess pic.twitter.com/Bemp9dJcvO
— Chess.com (@chesscom) July 24, 2025
…and it had paid off as he scored a fine win over Dubov to move to 3.5/4, but against Aronian one misjudged move, 20.Nb5?, ran into the brutal counter-punch 20…Nd4!! and it was game over—though the players continued until checkmate.
That beautiful game put Aronian in a commanding position with 4.5/5, and he was able to ease through with two draws in the next two games.
Vidit, meanwhile, saw his hopes evaporate as he was ground down by 18-year-old Maurizzi in time trouble in the next round. Maurizzi then booked his spot by eliminating Dubov in the final round. A dance of rooks suddenly ended with Dubov blundering one when he could have saved it and retained some winning chances.
Maurizzi was surprisingly paired against his French compatriot Moussard as early as round two, with the two Team Aegis teammates making a draw. It did no harm to their chances, as both players went on to qualify, with Moussard managing to beat weaker opposition and draw against his strongest rivals.
Jules Moussard has punched his ticket to the Last Chance Qualifier 16-player knockout! https://t.co/460HQ352d7 pic.twitter.com/M0YsR45SeP
— chess24 (@chess24com) July 24, 2025
25-year-old Sarana was the other player to make it through, a result that owed a lot to a hard-fought win over early leader Andreikin, who could have escaped if he’d spotted a study-like detail.
So a handful of the world’s best speed chess players had already been knocked out, but we still had three Swiss tournaments to go.
Group B: Bortnyk, Nihal Dominate; Yakubboev Misses Out
The lineup of the second qualifier raised some questions, since it had more players than the first but also far fewer top contenders to do well in the Esports World Cup. In the end it was perhaps only 38-year-old Egyptian GM Ahmed Adly qualifying in place of rising Uzbek talent GM Nodirbek Yakubboev that could count as a surprise.
Nihal (Team S8UL) led from the start and made it to 3/3 despite nearly losing control against 2024 European Champion GM Aleksandar Indjic.
The Indian star spoiled a winning position and, with 16 seconds to his opponent’s over two minutes, looked in trouble (there’s no increment at any point of the games), but Nihal accelerated and gave checkmate in 106 moves. In fact he “missed” mate-in-one near the end, but he’d demonstrated perfect online technique for pre-moving in such a way that he couldn’t blunder stalemate whatever his opponent did!
At one point Indjic seemed sure to beat Nihal on the clock after equalizing on the board… but flagging Nihal is easier said than done! https://t.co/xiQKIJPh8Q#EsportsWorldCup pic.twitter.com/mTHJRHH1nV
— chess24 (@chess24com) July 24, 2025
Nihal was on a roll, and in the next game stored a stunning win over co-leader Bortnyk (Team Navi), the only loss the Ukrainian would suffer. 31.Rg5+!! was a beautiful and devastating blow. A rain of sacrifices followed, all absolutely justified.
It says something, however, that that game wasn’t even our Game of the Day, since Bortnyk hit back to score a spectacular win over Esipenko (Team Virtus.pro). That’s been analyzed by GM Rafael Leitao below.
That wasn’t the end of the road for Esipenko, however, since in the final round he beat leader Nihal on demand—a win that still left Nihal in a qualification spot.
The other major drama in the final round was that while Adly scored a battling 58-move win over Indjic, Yakubboev collapsed against Bortnyk, who was completely winning in 15 moves, though the game only ended with checkmate and a fist pump on move 79.
The moment of @BortnykChess‘s victory! #EWC2025 pic.twitter.com/sUcTs0tDfF
— NAVI Chess (@NAVIChess) July 24, 2025
So eight players are through to the Last Chance Qualifier Playoffs on Saturday, but first on Friday we have another two Swiss groups. Top-rated players GMs Anish Giri (Team Secret) and Praggnanandhaa (Team Liquid) are among those set to be in action.
GM Praggnanandhaa has arrived in Riyadh, and will be crushing opponents at the #esportsworldcup Chess LCQ tomorrow! #LETSGOLIQUID
Who wants a signed Pragg Jersey? 👀 pic.twitter.com/AR8NCQHQ51
— Team Liquid (@TeamLiquid) July 24, 2025
Don’t miss it!
How to watch?
The 2025 Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia features chess for the first time, with a $1.5 million prize fund and $250,000 for first place, while chess players are also part of esports teams that share a $27 million prize fund. 12 players qualified to the main event via the Champions Chess Tour, while four will qualify in the Last Chance Qualifier (July 24-26) in Riyadh. That event has a $50,000 prize fund, with four Swiss tournaments then a 16-player Playoffs to decide the final four. The main event (July 29-August 1) is first split into four groups of four players. Half of the players will be eliminated before the top-eight compete in a knockout Playoff for the top prizes. The time control for all games is 10 minutes, with no increment.
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