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World champion Gukesh Dommaraju contemplates a move in the previous round of the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament. (PHOTO: Michal Walusza / FIDE)
With the FIDE World Cup returning to India after 23 years, world champion D Gukesh said that he was looking forward to going back to Goa, a place where he has pleasant memories from his early playing days. The World Cup is scheduled to start October 31 to November 27 at a resort in North Goa.
“I am really excited about the World Cup. Playing anywhere in India is great and I have some great memories of Goa. I have played some junior events there. So, looking forward to being there,” Gukesh, who will start as the top seed here, said.
Gukesh had last competed in Goa in 2019, finishing 10th in the Category ‘A’ Goa International Open Grandmasters Chess Tournament despite being seeded much lower at the start. The reigning world champion has received a bye in the opening round and is likely to face Kazybek Nogerbek of Kazakhstan in the second.
A record number of 24 Indians will participate in the biennial event, which offers Candidates’ spots. The FIDE World Cup 2025 will feature 206 players competing in a head-to-head, two-game knockout format over eight rounds. Each round spans three days: two classical games (between two players) on the first two days, followed by tie-breaks on the third day, if necessary.
In the first round, the top 50 players receive byes, while players seeded from 51 to 206 compete, with pairings based on the principle of the top half versus the reversed lower half.
The FIDE World Cup is the event that offers the top three finishers direct qualification for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, which determines the challenger for the World Chess Championship.
“The World Cup it’s a great event and I am going to play it regardless. It’s fun to play it,” said Anish Giri, who will be the highest ranked foreign player in the competition.
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Speaking about the challenge of the qualification format, Giri said, “It’s a very tricky qualification path, whichever is the format. I have played a lot of them (World Cup). Once I got very close to qualifying through the world cup. I lost the semi-final to Peter Svidler (in 2015).”
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