FIDE Chess World Cup: World champion Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa kick off campaign in Goa

The serious business gets underway at the FIDE World Cup 2025 in Goa on Tuesday as big names like world champion D Gukesh, India No 1 Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa kick off their campaign in Round 2 at the Resort Rio Convention Centre. The top 50 players were given a bye in the first round of the FIDE World Cup 2025.

Besides 17 Indians, top global stars like Anish Giri, Hans Niemann, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Wesley So, among others, will also start their FIDE World Cup campaign on 4 November.

The FIDE World Cup offers three spots for the Candidates 2026 tournament, which would be the main aim for Erigaisi, Praggnanandhaa, Nepomniachtchi and others, but world champion Gukesh doesn't need to qualify for the Candidates. He is taking part in the World Cup to hone his skills.

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The Candidates 2026 winner would eventually compete against Gukesh in the World Chess Championship next year.

The FIDE Women's World Cup winner, Divya Deshmukh, has already been ruled out of the race for a Candidates spot after being knocked out in Round 1 of the FIDE World Cup. She was the only woman Grandmaster in the tournament. Overall, five Indians were knocked out in Round 1.

Where to live stream of FIDE World Cup 2025 Round 2 in India?

The FIDE World Cup 2025 Round 2 matches will be streamed live on the FIDE, Chess.com and Chessbase YouTube channels.

Indians in action in FIDE World Cup Round 2

GM D Gukesh (2752) vs GM Kazybek Nogerbek (KAZ) 2543

GM Arjun Erigaisi (2773) vs GM Martin Petrov (BUL) 2540

GM R Praggnanandhaa (2771) vs GM Temur Kuybokarov (AUS) 2535

GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly (2573) vs GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (FRA) 2737

GM Diptayan Ghosh (2573) vs GM Ian Nepomniachtchi (FID) 2732

IM Ghosh Aronyak (2514) vs GM Levon Aronian (USA) 2722

GM Santosh Gujrathi Vidit (2716) vs IM Faustino Oro (ARG) 2509

GM Venkataraman Karthik (2579) vs GM Chithambaram Vr. Aravindh (IND) 2711

GM Chithambaram Vr. Aravindh (2711) vs GM Venkataraman Karthik (IND) 2579

GM Sarin Nihal (2700) vs GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis (GRE) 2583

GM Pentala Harikrishna (2697) vs GM Arseniy Nesterov (FID) 2584

GM Murali Karthikeyan (2662) vs GM Pouya Idani (IRI) 2601

GM Pa Iniyan (2599) vs GM Thai Dai Van Nguyen (CZE) 2664

GM S L Narayanan (2617) vs GM Nikita Vitiugov (ENG) 2654

GM Pranesh M (2630) vs GM Dmitrij Kollars (GER) 2642

GM Pranav V (2641) vs GM Aryan Tari (NOR) 2631

GM Raunak Sadhwani (2641) vs GM Robert Hovhannisyan (ARM) 2633