Gukesh Misses Win Vs. 14-Year-Old Erdogmus
GM Alireza Firouzja is the only top-20 seed on a perfect 2/2 after grinding out a win in round two of the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss, this time with Black against GM Maxim Rodshtein. He's joined in the lead by the 21st seed, GM Parham Maghsoodloo, and the 76th seed, GM Anton Demchenko, who played our game of the day to beat GM Sam Shankland. World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju looked set to join the leaders after outplaying 14-year-old GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus but let the prodigy escape on move 40.
IM Olga Badelka and GM Vaishali Rameshbabu are the leaders in the Women's 2025 FIDE Women's Grand Swiss after a much quieter second day, with Vaishali punishing a disastrous opening by IM Eline Roebers to win in 22 moves. We were on course to have three leaders in both sections, but IM Vantika Agrawal let GM Bibisara Assaubayeva escape in a winning endgame.
Round three is on Saturday, September 6, starting at 6 a.m. ET / 12:00 CEST / 3:30 p.m. IST.
Standings
Just two rounds in and we're down to just three leaders on a perfect 2/2 out of the 116 who started the Open event.
FIDE Grand Swiss Standings After Round 2
And in the Women's section there are only two.
FIDE Women's Grand Swiss Standings After Round 2
Open: Firouzja, Maghsoodloo, Demchenko Lead
Half the games were decisive at the top of the Open tournament, including Indian GMs Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Arjun Erigaisi picking up their first wins.
Round 2 Results: Open
Check out the full games and results.
Firouzja is a player who usually finds a way to win, especially in Swiss events, and he moved to 2/2 by using his skill set to overcome Rodshtein with the black pieces.
It was a deserved win, though things spiraled out of control in time trouble and as late as move 37. When Firouzja had 40 seconds on his clock, Rodshtein could have escaped, but he chose the wrong jump with his knight.
Just two players would join Firouzja on a perfect score. One was Maghsoodloo, who outplayed GM David Anton in the run-up to the time control, while the other was 76th-seed Demchenko, who for the second day in a row featured on the list of upsets.
FIDE Grand Swiss Round 2 Upset Wins
| Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg | Result | Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg |
| GM Abhimanyu Mishra (86) | 2611 | 1 - 0 | GM Alexey Sarana (26) | 2686 | ||
| GM Pavel Eljanov (27) | 2682 | 0 - 1 | GM Leon Luke Mendonca (83) | 2615 | ||
| GM Alexandr Predke (90) | 2609 | 1 - 0 | GM Ray Robson (30) | 2674 | ||
| GM Anton Demchenko (76) | 2620 | 1 - 0 | GM Sam Shankland (34) | 2670 | ||
| GM Murali Karthikeyan (35) | 2669 | 0 - 1 | GM Aryan Chopra (79) | 2619 | ||
| GM Yuriy Kuzubov (94) | 2600 | 1 - 0 | GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek (38) | 2661 | ||
| GM Alexander Grischuk (41) | 2657 | 0 - 1 | GM Cristobal Henriquez Villagra (97) | 2594 | ||
| GM Jules Moussard (98) | 2591 | 1 - 0 | GM Ivan Saric (42) | 2655 | ||
| GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre (45) | 2651 | 0 - 1 | GM Szymon Gumularz (101) | 2590 | ||
| GM Mateusz Bartel (106) | 2581 | 1 - 0 | GM Rauf Mamedov (46) | 2651 |
In a Sicilian Najdorf, Shankland was the first to sacrifice a piece, his rook on c3, but Demchenko's attack won the day. That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.
Another notable upset was scored by GM Abhimanyu Mishra, who holds the record as the youngest-ever grandmaster, though now at 16 he's looking to climb the rating list, targeting 20-30 points in Samarkand.
He's also built up a 58-classical-game unbeaten streak; however, for one move against world number-41 GM Alexey Sarana, the streak was in danger. Instead his opponent went astray.
One player who looked set to join the three leaders was World Champion Gukesh, who was taking on the highest-rated player for his age of all time, Erdogmus.
It's curious to note that both are teenagers, and they could easily clash on the highest stage in future, so that gaining the upper hand early might matter. Gukesh looked on course to do that after he started 1.d4 d5 2.c3, a move that you'd consider a lack of chess knowledge if played by a beginner.
This is the problem Classical chess faces compared to Freestyle.
— Peter Heine Nielsen (@PHChess) September 5, 2025
Top players have stopped playing good openings, out of fear of computer analysis. https://t.co/Kvx0rzNRRR
In this case, however, it was an attempt to dodge knowledge and instead outplay an inexperienced opponent.
It worked perfectly, up to a point, which was move 40, when Gukesh had just over three minutes on his clock but would get an extra 50 minutes when making the move. He understood the importance of the moment and got down to eight seconds before missing the win with 40.Bxg5?. Erdogmus gratefully accepted the gift, though even for a world champion, the position was far from easy to figure out with so little time.
While that was a miss for one Indian star, three others opened their winning accounts. Top-seed Praggnanandhaa tricked 15-year-old Ivan Zemlyanskii in time trouble to move to 1.5/2.
There were also wins for GMs Arjun and Nihal Sarin that were, in those players' styles, absolutely wild, with insane levels of risk bringing reward. It's only possible to give a brief indication of some of the tactics, while a full study of the games could take a week!
Arjun was, strictly speaking, busted against Armenian GM Haik Martirosyan, but he didn't let that stand in his way.
Nihal merely sacrificed an exchange for attacking chances. Another Armenian GM, Aram Hakobyan, could have forced a draw at one point, but he correctly assessed that he was better. That didn't help in the long run, however, as Nihal won in style!
There were also first wins for several top players, including GMs Richard Rapport and Yu Yangyi.
GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, surprisingly playing his first Grand Swiss, defeated Turkish prodigy GM Ediz Gurel, while GM Vincent Keymer pounced on an endgame mistake by GM Jeffery Xiong. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave got a helping hand when GM Andrei Volokitin lost on time on move 28 in a tricky but defendable position.
In total no fewer than 30 players are on 1.5/2, while Firouzja-Maghsoodloo will be a first key clash of leaders in Saturday's round three.
Women: Vaishali, Badelka Lead
On day one, seven of the top games were decisive in the Women's section, while on day two it was just three.
Round 2 Results: Women
Check out the full games and results.
Defending champion Vaishali raced to 2/2 after she blew Roebers out of the water in just 22 moves. It was a cautionary tale of why it's usually best to castle early! White didn't, and the punishment was brutal.
The only player to join Vaishali on 2/2 was IM Olga Badelka after WGM Zsoka Gaal, who had beaten the top seed the day before, never quite recovered from allowing a knight sacrifice on f2, even if the position remained close to dynamically balanced for a while afterward.
That game counted as one of just three upsets on day two, compared to 11 lower-rated players winning in round one.
FIDE Women's Grand Swiss Round 2 Upset Wins
| Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg | Result | Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg |
| WIM Guldona Karimova (49) | 2324 | 1 - 0 | IM Lela Javakhishvili (17) | 2434 | ||
| WGM Shrook Wafa (53) | 2202 | 1 - 0 | GM Elina Danielian (23) | 2405 | ||
| WGM Zsoka Gaal (29) | 2388 | 0 - 1 | IM Olga Badelka (40) | 2375 |
Armenian GM Elina Danielian had been playing a fine attacking game against Egyptian WGM Shrook Wafa, but when she lost her way she needed to take a draw. Instead she overlooked one move and stumbled to defeat. Georgian IM Lela Javakhishvili, meanwhile, suffered one of the worst cases of "never play f6" against Uzbek WIM Guldona Karimova. White went on to score a crushing win.
It was also a day of recovery for some of the stars who had lost in round one. GM Tan Zhongyi and IMs Carissa Yip, Leya Garifullina, and Teodora Injac all bounced back with wins.
Another player to hit back was former women's world champion GM Mariya Muzychuk, who condemned GM Valentina Gunina to a second loss. 19...Re8? was a losing move.
One near miss was for Vantika, who was on the brink of beating Assaubayeva and moving to 2/2 when she allowed a saving resource.
In round three, at least one 100-percent record must go, as Vaishali will have the white pieces against her fellow leader Badelka. If they make a draw, they can be caught by any of the 15 players currently on 1.5/2.
How to watch?
You can watch the day's broadcast on the Chess24 YouTube or Twitch channels. The games can also be reviewed from our dedicated events page.
The broadcast was hosted by GM Judit Polgar, GM David Howell, and John Sargent.
The 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss and FIDE Women's Grand Swiss are 11-round Swiss tournaments taking place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on September 4-15. Each will decide two places in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournaments that select the next world championship challengers. The Open tournament has a $625,000 prize fund, with $90,000 for first place, while the Women's is $230,000 ($40,000). The time control is classical, with a longer time control for the Open of 100 minutes/40 moves + 50 min/20 + 15 min, with a 30-second increment from move 1.
Previous coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
