Duda, Arjun Qualify For Esports World Cup, Fedoseev Wins Swiss
GM Vladimir Fedoseev won the Swiss portion of the 2025 Chess.com Classic Play-in with 7.5/9 to qualify directly for the Playoffs. After finishing in the top 15 of the Swiss, seven other players won in Match Play to advance as well: GMs Denis Lazavik, Levon Aronian, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Arjun Erigaisi, Fabiano Caruana, Vladislav Artemiev, and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu. Thanks to their performances in the previous CCT event, just qualifying for the Playoffs was enough to guarantee Duda and Arjun entry to the 2025 Esports World Cup.
The following players are already in the Playoffs by invitation: GMs Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Gukesh Dommaraju, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Ding Liren, and Wei Yi.
The Playoffs begin Tuesday, May 20, starting at 11:00 a.m. ET / 17:00 CEST / 9:30 p.m. IST. You can see the matchups below.
Playoffs Bracket
- What's At Stake: Last Qualifying CCT Event For Esports World Cup
- Swiss: Fedoseev Finishes Clear 1st
- Match Play: Duda, Arjun Qualify For Riyadh
What's At Stake: Last Qualifying CCT Event For Esports World Cup
The Chess.com Classic is the second of two qualifying events for the 2025 Esports World Cup, which will start at the end of July. On top of cash prizes, the top 12 on the leaderboard at the end will advance. Before the event began, we knew three players had guaranteed their spots: GMs Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, and Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Each event has a $150,000 prize fund, with $25,000 going to the winner. It's six days long and started on Sunday with the non-GM qualifier. The focus of this report is Monday's Play-in, which featured the Swiss and Match Play stages.
The eight players who advance through both stages will join the star-studded lineup of invited players. Not to mention rapid and blitz titles, it includes three classical world champions: Carlsen, Gukesh (reigning), and Ding.
Let's dive into the chess.
Swiss: Fedoseev Finishes Clear 1st
The tournament was a nine-round Swiss with a time control of 10+0. Fedoseev finished in clear first in the field of 118, nearly all grandmasters. His reward was direct qualification to the Playoffs on Tuesday instead of playing matches in the next portion. He also got to choose his opponent, and he elected to play World Champion Gukesh tomorrow.
Final Standings After 9 Rounds
Just earlier this month, Fedoseev won the 2025 Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland (with three rounds to spare) even though he was just a wildcard. The 30-year-old showed that it's not just the teenagers who are having career breakthroughs in chess these days. Curiously, five out of his six wins came with the black pieces.
Despite the many wins, his opening choice with Black was solid: Petroff against 1.e4 and Queen's Gambit Declined against 1.d4. In two of his games in the QGD, however, he castled queenside—in rounds seven and nine. The game against GM Liem Le in round seven was the most entertaining, where Fedoseev "castled by hand," spending four moves to bring his king to safety on b8. With his king tucked away, he overpowered his opponent on the queenside. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the Game of the Day below.
Caruana could breathe a sigh of relief after finishing second in the Swiss. Though he's already been signed by Team Liquid (the same team as Carlsen), he has yet to qualify for Riyadh. In the 2025 Chessable Masters, he lost the two matches he played—against GM Alireza Firouzja and Andrey Esipenko—and was quickly eliminated, so he's secured his second chance.
Like Fedoseev, he went undefeated but with one more draw (and one fewer win). His win against GM David Anton in the last round was critical in his finishing second, though even if he lost it, six points might have been enough to advance by tiebreaks.
His third-round victory came against Romanian number-one GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac, someone he'd just played over the board in the 2025 Superbet Chess Classic Romania in the classical time format. The innocent 21.Rb1??, intending to trade off Black's active rook, was met with what must have been a surprising refutation. 21...Bf3! threatened mate and, in a few moves, winning the exchange.
One-third of the players who advanced to Match Play were Indian grandmasters. The bullet-master GM Nihal Sarin whizzed to a 6.5/9 score, and his speed-chess prowess proved useful in the 10+0 time control. Round three against Anton was a dramatic one, where he could have run out of time, but instead managed to land a checkmate with two seconds left.
Praggnanandhaa was the highest-scoring Indian player, and his game in round seven against Firouzja was another clash of players who had just met over the board in Romania. The game could have gone either way after move 25, as first Firouzja missed a win starting with 26.Ne7+!—instead playing 26.Qc4??, the losing move. It was a case of "right idea but wrong execution," as suddenly the black king had an escape square, and it was White's knight that got trapped.
We had seven matches to determine the seven other players, besides Fedoseev, who would continue on to Tuesday.
Match Play: Duda, Arjun Qualify For Riyadh
Two-game matches determined the seven players who moved on. Just two matches went down to armageddon, with the other five decided in the regular games.
After two draws, Duda won on demand with the white pieces against GM Benjamin Bok in the armageddon. 24.Nxf7! was the start of a devastating attack that would ultimately end in capturing his ticket to Saudi Arabia.
Duda said he was excited to qualify, though he noted that it's probably going to be extremely hot in the summer. He also shared, perhaps sadly for his fans, that he's not interested in the classical world championship cycle this year, though he noted he can still change his mind later on.
Jan-Krzysztof Duda: "To be honest, I'm pretty fed up with classical chess or rather with what I've been doing for a very long time in this format... I think it's quite likely that I won't participate in both the World Cup and Grand Swiss."#ChessChamps pic.twitter.com/XMqeONEyKy
— chess24 (@chess24com) May 19, 2025
Like Duda, winning his match was enough for Arjun to qualify for the Esports World Cup; even if he loses both of his matches in the Playoffs, he's in. After losing game one, Dubov looked on track to potentially winning game two, but first he lost control, and then he overlooked a knockout tactic.
The other armageddon was between GM Daniel Naroditsky and Artemiev. Things were going great for the American grandmaster when he won a rook endgame in game one, but Artemiev then won in game two, and then won again with White in the armageddon. Naroditsky didn't hide his agony as the match slipped through his fingertips.
💔 Heartbreak for Danya, who won his first game against Artemiev but then lost the next two and will miss out on the Playoffs.#ChessChamps pic.twitter.com/ifV2Fyi9Hu
— chess24 (@chess24com) May 19, 2025
After a draw in game one, Lazavik won four pawns for a piece against Nihal and converted the endgame to advance. Vidit, who at one point took the sole lead of the Swiss, unfortunately crashed in the match against Aronian and lost 0-2. In the first game, Aronian found a tactical way to keep his passed pawn alive, while at the same time eliminating his opponent's.
Praggnanandhaa beat GM Grigoriy Oparin 1.5-0.5 by winning game one and then holding the draw in game two. Meanwhile, Caruana defeated GM M Pranesh 2-0, but they nearly reached armageddon. Needing to win on demand in game two, Pranesh found the crushing 24.Bb3!, but he needed to find the precise 27.Bxf7! to maintain the winning advantage. In the game, Caruana's king ran away and survived.
The next four days will feature Playoffs with the 16 players. Who will be next to punch their ticket to the 2025 Esports World Cup?
The Chess.com Classic is the second of two legs in the 2025 Champions Chess Tour. On May 19, the world's best players competed in the Play-in, a nine-round Swiss with a 10-minute time control (no increment). The top eight qualify, with eight invited players, for the Playoffs, a four-day event on May 20-23 with a prize fund of $150,000. The top-12 on the CCT leaderboard make it to the Esports World Cup in the summer of 2025.
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