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FIDE Chess World Cup 2025 Round 3 Game 2 LIVE Updates: Follow Indians in action in Goa. (PHOTO: FIDE/Michal Walusza)
FIDE Chess World Cup 2025, Round 3 Game 2 Results and Standings Live Updates: An exciting day awaits Indian chess, with 10 players looking to secure their spots Round 4 in the ongoing FIDE Chess World Cup 2025 in Goa. On Saturday, Arjun Erigaisi, Pentala Harikrishna, and Pranav V need only a draw to confirm their qualification for the fourth round, while the seven remaining Indians require a win for direct qualification.
All seven of the other players — D. Gukesh, Diptayan Ghosh, Karthik Venkataraman, R. Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi, M. Pranesh, and S.L. Narayanan — drew their first game in the third round. A loss for any of these players would result in elimination, while another draw in the second game would send the match to tiebreakers.
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The top three finishers in this event will get spots for Candidates 2026, a challenger tournament where the winner of the event gets to challenge the reigning World Champion.
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FIDE World Cup: Arjun Erigaisi reiterates the class he showed at Chess Olympiad with blistering win to start third round
A clear pattern has emerged for Arjun that a match against a lower-rated player often becomes a heavily skewed affair in his favour. (Photo Credit: Michal Waluzsa/FIDE)
It was during the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest that the Indian men’s team attracted a lot of eyeballs, not particularly for the immense firepower that the team possessed, but also for the board order in which the team would play. The top three names for India were R. Praggnanandhaa, D. Gukesh and Arjun Erigaisi, with each having the calibre to take the top board. Arjun was the highest-ranked Indian at that time and, naturally, an ideal fit to take the top board against the world’s best.
Cut to the end of the event, India had won their historic maiden gold medal, and Arjun also won an individual gold medal for the best performance on his board. It wasn’t the top board, nor was it board No. 2. Arjun played on the third board behind Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa and ran through the opposition like a blitzkrieg. Not that Arjun playing on Board No. 3 was a demotion, but the highest-ranked Indian not taking the top board was somewhat not mainstream. The rationale behind this move was to cash in on Arjun’s superiority over players rated lower than him, India’s coach at that time, N. Srinath had explained.
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