Arjun, Keymer, Wei, Mamedyarov, Vachier-Lagrave Among Early Leaders

Twenty-one players, on a total of 64 boards in round two of the 2025 FIDE World Cup, scored wins and are a draw away from advancing to round three. On the top boards, we saw GMs Arjun Erigaisi, Vincent Keymer, Wei Yi, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave break out with early leads. GM Richard Rapport won the Game of the Day with Black, against GM Luis Supi.

The second classical game of round two is on Wednesday, November 5, starting at 4:30 a.m. ET / 10:30 CET / 3 p.m. IST.

Round 2 Results

Games, Results, and Bracket.

Of the draws on top boards, GM Wesley So came the closest to winning, but GM Titas Stremavicius defended tenaciously in what was the last game to finish, after 107 moves. So had a winning position objectively, with an extra pawn, but it was never trivial.

Moving onto the decisive games, we start with Arjun on board two. GM Martin Petrov imploded as the game approached move 40 as he went for a series of trades that ended with him losing a pawn and then a knight.

Wei, on the other hand, won a miniature in an opening he described as "Romantic." GM Kacper Piorun's 15...Qf6? was the losing move, though the precise 18.Bf7+! desperado was the only move to prove it. 

Another miniature that also lasted exactly 26 moves was GM Andrey Esipenko's win against GM Nijat Abasov, who qualified for the 2024 FIDE Candidates Tournament from the last World Cup. The game was one of the first to end, and Esipenko sacrificed a piece for a winning attack.

Keymer, who now wears a lucky ring that he bought in May, won a long grind. It was one where he'd objectively thrown away the entire advantage, but gained it back.

He explained he ran into trouble because he was trying to avoid demonstrating the knight-and-bishop checkmate, though "it's not that difficult" to do. "It was kind of a shock that I managed to mess up such a winning position," he said, though he got the full point in the end.

Aronian's game took 30 moves to finish but was one of the best in the round. He sacrificed a piece and an exchange. When the smoke cleared, White was down a rook, but there was no defense for the naked black king.

"It's not every day you get to attack, and this felt very exciting for me." said Aronian in the interview. He judged that his opponent was a positional player, he said, and so he went for the tactics. His comments are included below.

It wasn't all about attacking. Mamedyarov played the provocative 4.Qb3, which backfired for Caruana recently at the U.S. Championship, and beckoned his opponent to sacrifice a piece. The tactical wizard defended against terrifying threats pursuing his king in the center and won.

Vachier-Lagrave won a surprisingly one-sided game against GM Surya Shekhar Ganguly, while our Game of the Day goes to Rapport. The Hungarian GM summarized his game:

I had a better structure and solid play, he had the bishop pair and some possible initiative against my king, which I kind of parried. And afterwards, when we were both sort of low on time, I think he started to play kind of tepidly, and I just took over the game, and you know, he blundered at the end.

GM Rafael Leitao goes over the full Game of the Day below. 

There were no serious upsets, though there were cases where a lower-rated grandmaster beat a higher-rated one. We saw GM Evgeniy Najer defeat GM Johan-Sebastian Christiansen, GM Georg Meier beat Rapid World Champion Volodar Murzin, and GM Etienne Bacrot take down GM Nils Grandelius.

GM Ivan Zemlyanskii (2586) winning against GM Ray Robson (2664) was probably the closest we had to an upset, as the 15-year-old was definitely the underdog. 39.Qxf8! was a sweet way to end the game, and Robson played it out to checkmate.

The curse of move 40 crept up on one lower board in particular. GM Aryan Tari was better against GM Pranav Venkatesh, but in time pressure, he had to find 40.Rh5!. It was not only the only move for an advantage, but it was the only move not to be worse. With a minute, he played 40.g4?? and resigned a move later. 

That's a loss with the white pieces, which puts Tari in a must-win position with Black in game two.

All matches will either be decided in the second classical game on Wednesday or in tiebreaks on Thursday.

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.

Previous reports:

• Round 1 Tiebreaks: 12-Year-Old Oro Among 20 Winners In Tiebreaks
• Round 1 Game 2: IM Shixu Wang Pulls Upset, 20 Matches Go To Tiebreaks
• Round 1 Game 1: Saleh Plays Attack Of The Day, Favorites Prevail In Game 1
• 2025 FIDE World Cup Pairings, Venue Revealed
• Divya Among 6 Players Awarded World Cup Wildcard Spots; Firouzja Not In