Harikrishna Sacs Queen; Nepomniachtchi, Wesley So, Aravindh Eliminated

Twenty-seven matches go to tiebreaks after the second classical game in round two of the 2025 FIDE World Cup. GM Pentala Harikrishna played the Game of the Day, if not the tournament, with a stunning queen sacrifice against GM Arseniy Nesterov.

We saw several 2700+ grandmasters go home after their first match: GMs Ian Nepomniachtchi, Aravindh Chithambaram, and Wesley So, who resigned in a position that was objectively drawn.

Round two tiebreaks are on Thursday, November 6, starting at 4:30 a.m. ET / 10:30 CET / 3 p.m. IST.

Round 2 Results

Games, Results, and Bracket.

On Thursday, we will see tiebreaks between the following players.

Round 2 Tiebreak Matches 

When Harikrishna sacrificed his queen for two minor pieces on move eight, his game was already a clear frontrunner for the Game of the Day. Admittedly, as he told Chess.com's IM Rakesh Kulkarni, it was "prep from a long time ago" and that "I got the courage to just play it out." He'd already checked all the moves until 11.Be3. 

He was, undersandably, proud of the game: "After a long time I could play a very interesting sacrifice, which obviously has compensation, but it's even more satisfying that it gives a bit better for Black, which I obviously knew."

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

Many favorites won on top boards, except for some standout upsets, which we will get to. On the top 12 boards, the following super-GMs advance with a rest day on Thursday: GMs Gukesh Dommaraju, Arjun Erigaisi, Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer, and Wei Yi.

After a draw in game one, the world champion wrapped up his match against GM Kazybek Nogerbek in game two. With the black pieces, he faced a solid exchange Caro-Kann, but his pressure down the c- and a-files eventually netted a pawn, and later, the game. 

Gukesh said, "Today I felt great over the board and played a clean game. It's not very often that you get such a dominant position."

Speaking to FIDE, Gukesh also reflected on having the world champion title for a year now: "It's been an interesting experience. Obviously, the results have not been great this year, but recently I've started to pick up a bit of my form."

He notably played in Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown just a week ago, in St. Louis, with the three best players in the world. Was it worth the travel and the jet lag? He answered that the challenge was one he couldn't pass up, and, "I was telling myself, if I don't push myself at this age, when am I going to push myself?"

Giri was relieved to win his game and move through, saying in the interview, "When you have a two-game match, nowadays it's even harder than like 10 years ago, I feel, and today you saw some people didn't manage to win." The margins are slimmer, and wins are harder to come by—not to mention the possibility of losing.

The game, featuring the Winawer Variation in the French Defense, had long phases of maneuvering. It was just before move 40, when he was given a chance to play 39.Qe7, that Giri started to get optimistic. Many of his lines and explanations are featured below.

We saw several of the favorites get held down to even scores. GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov missed a brief opportunity to win against GM Denis Makhnyov with the piece sacrifice 21.Bxh6!, and he'll be one of the many to pin his hopes on faster games this Thursday.

GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, too, will go to tiebreaks against GM Gergely  Kantor, but because the Azerbaijani player lost. Fortunately for him, Mamedyarov won yesterday and isn't eliminated on the spot.

Nepomniachtchi, So, and Aravindh (in that order) were eliminated from the event after drawing game one and losing game two. As such, they are not expected to qualify for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament.

Two-time Candidates winner Nepomniachtchi was the first to go, with his opponent, GM Diptayan Ghosh, saying he'd played an opening he hadn't played before. It was an 8.a4 Anti-Marshall. Ghosh said of his accomplishment, "First of all, qualifying for the World Cup itself is quite a thing, and then defeating Nepo in a match is icing on the cake." 

Nepomniachtchi posted the following on Telegram after the loss (translated from Russian).

I'd played in India before (in 2019 in Kolkata), so I more or less understood what the conditions would be like. But FIDE, to their credit, managed to surprise me. There's nothing to say about the chess part.

It's one of those places you don't feel sad about leaving.

So's loss against GM Titas Stremavicius was the most shocking, as he resigned just as the evaluation swung back in his favor (for a draw). The American had been defending with a bishop down for a long time, and in fairness, he only had under a minute to find the beautiful stalemate trick that could have saved the game. If you don't see it, there's no way you walk into it by accident.

😱 Wesley So resigns in a drawn position and is eliminated from the #2025FIDEWorldCup in his first match!https://t.co/iH25b9jDgH pic.twitter.com/HpuphK7z7C

— chess24 (@chess24com) November 5, 2025

2711-rated Aravindh got ground down by GM Karthik Venkataraman (2579) in a long, 89-move same-color bishop endgame. Aravindh, 26 years old, was on fire when he won the 2024 Chennai Grand Masters and then the 2025 Prague Chess Festival, reaching world number-11 in April. But, at least this time around, the Candidates is out of reach.

On the lower boards, a standout result was GM Sam Shankland defeating GM Vasyl Ivanchuk 2-0, though on paper he's the higher-rated player by about 50 points. Two notable wins on demand, to recover from game-one losses, were scored by GMs Nils Grandelius (against GM Etienne Bacrot) and Aryan Tari (against GM Pranav Venkatesh). 

Twenty-seven players will have to confirm their path back home after Thursday.

Who's Eliminated?

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 2 Game 1: Arjun, Keymer, Wei, Mamedyarov, Vachier-Lagrave Among Early Leaders
• 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