IM Shixu Wang Pulls Upset, 20 Matches Go To Tiebreaks
Of the 78 matches in round one of the 2025 FIDE World Cup, 20 will go to rapid and blitz tiebreaks on Monday. The rest have been decided in the classical portion, almost unanimously, with the favorites winning. The upset of the day was IM Shixu Wang's (2402) match win against GM Leon Mendonca (2620).
Round one tiebreaks will take place on Monday, November 3, starting at 4:30 a.m. ET / 10:30 a.m. CET / 3:00 p.m. IST.
The following matches, which are tied at 1-1 after two classical games, will go to tiebreaks on Monday.
Tiebreak Matches
| Board | Player 1 | Player 2 | Winner Will Face |
| 1 | Robert Hovhannisyan | Kavin Mohan | Raunak Sadhwani |
| 2 | Daniil Yuffa | Shiyam Thavandiran | Jeffery Xiong |
| 3 | S L Narayanan | Steven Rojas | Nikita Vitugov |
| 4 | Cristobal Henriquez | Uurtsaikh Agibileg | Alexey Sarana |
| 5 | Aldiyar Ansat | Jorge Cori | Shant Sargsyan |
| 6 | Karen Grigoryan | Ahmed Adly | Matthias Bluebaum |
| 7 | Alisher Suleymenov | Arturs Neiksans | Jorden Van Foreest |
| 8 | Jegor Lashkin | Tin Jingyao | Sam Sevian |
| 9 | R Babu Lalith | Max Warmerdam | Awonder Liang |
| 10 | Faustino Oro | Ante Brkic | Vidit Gujrathi |
| 11 | Aronyak Ghosh | Mateusz Bartel | Levon Aronian |
| 12 | Luis Paulo Supi | Sion Galaviz | Richard Raport |
| 13 | Jose Cardoso | Baadur Jobava | Liem Le |
| 14 | Diptayan Ghosh | Xiongjian Peng | Ian Nepomniachtchi |
| 15 | Diego Flores | Denis Makhnyov | Nodirbek Abdusattorov |
| 16 | Sergei Lobanov | Kacper Piorun | Wei Yi |
| 17 | Titas Stremavicus | Sebasatian Bogner | Wesley So |
| 18 | Emre Can | Bojan Maksimovic | Anish Giri |
| 19 | Temur Kuybokarov | Jan Subelj | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu |
| 20 | Raja Rithvik | Kazybek Nogerbek | Gukesh Dommaraju |
With two days left before round two, several of the top-50 seeds have started to appear at the Rio Resort in Goa, India. GM Vidit Gujrathji came into the playing hall and observed the game between GM Ante Brkic and IM Faustino Oro (the youngest participant ever in a World Cup), which featured 98-percent accuracy by both sides and ended in a draw. Vidit will face the winner after Monday's tiebreaks.
Other stars, like GM Anish Giri, could be found by the pool. He will, by the way, face the winner of IM Bojan Maksimovic and GM Emre Can, who go to tiebreaks after two draws.
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Most matches that go to tiebreaks featured two draws. There were four matches, though, that saw the player who lost on Saturday strike back on demand. They were GM Cristobal Henriquez, who suffered an upset in round one (against IM Uurtsaikh Agibileg), IM Aronyak Ghosh (against GM Mateusz Bartel), GM Jose Gabriel Cardoso (against GM Baadur Jobava), and GM Diego Flores, who earned a second life against GM Denis Makhnyov after blundering his queen in the first game.
Henriquez struck back with a killer attack on the h-file. It was an attack that played out, one might say, in slow motion. White had the time to play the calm plan of 32.Kg2 and 33.Re1; then Black collapsed. The last move of the game was a flashy way to finish.
Cardoso won a heated time scramble after Jobava snacked on a poisoned pawn, leaving his queen and rook vulnerable to decisive threats.
As expected in the decisive matches of round one, most of the favorites moved on. Indeed, you have to scroll down to board 17 even to see the first tied score, with the higher-rated player winning on all the boards above that.
The standout exception was our upset, and game, of the day. After a draw in game one, Wang won with the white pieces in the Petrosian Variation of the Queen's Indian Defense. Though it wasn't perfect, the game was a convincing demonstration of how to press a space advantage, and later, the advantage of the two bishops. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the game below.
Wang's reward for that impressive match victory will be a match, in round two, against the 14-year-old Turkish GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who won his match against CM Nagi Abugenda 2-0. The teenager landed a checkmate in just 17 moves in game one, and game two took 10 more moves. This time, the game ended by resignation when the black queen got trapped.
His countryman, Turkish number-two GM Ediz Gurel, advanced to round two after defeating GM Igor Efimov 2-0. It's already an improvement from his debut in the 2023 edition, where he was knocked out in the round-one tiebreaks. He shared it's his first time ever in India.
An even nicer finish than Erdogmus' was GM David Anton's queen sacrifice against IM David Silva, which allowed him to finish with a 2-0 score.
Among the 58 players eliminated was the only woman in the event, GM Divya Deshmukh who lost 2-0 against GM Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis. Because of her win in the 2025 FIDE Women's World Cup, we will see her in the 2026 FIDE Women's Candidates.
On Monday, we will start with 15+10 games and then move on to 10+10, 5+3, and 3+2. Indeed, armageddon is back, and you can see the full format below.
You can watch the event on Chess.com/TV. You can also enjoy the show on Chess24, on Twitch, or YouTube. Games from the event can be viewed on our events page.
The live broadcast was hosted by IMs Jovanka Houska and Anna Rudolf.
The 2025 FIDE World Cup, which takes place from November 1 to 26 in Goa, India, determines three spots in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament. It is a 206-player single-elimination knockout tournament with eight rounds. Each match consists of two classical games followed by rapid and blitz tiebreaks if needed. The prize fund is $2 million.
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