Anand Stuns Arjun On Day 2 Of World Rapid Team Championship
Fifty-five-year-old GM Viswanathan Anand rolled back the years to win a brilliant game against GM Arjun Erigaisi on day two of the 2025 World Rapid & Blitz Team Championships. Arjun's 0.5/4 didn't stop his Team MGD1 remaining unbeaten until the final round, when World Rapid Champion Volodar Murzin led Hexamind to a 4-2 win that saw it catch the leader. Favorite WR Chess suffered two losses, but is only two points off the pace.
Day three starts Friday, June 13, at 9 a.m. ET / 15:00 CEST / 6:30 p.m. IST.
- Anand Outplays Arjun, But Team MGD1 Still The One To Beat
- Favorite WR Chess Suffers Again In Rapid
- Murzin, Dominguez, Divya Star As Hexamind Beats MGD1 To Catch Leader
FIDE World Rapid Team Championship Standings After Day 2 (Top 10)
It's incredibly tight at the top going into the final four rounds of the World Rapid Team Championship.
| Rank | Seed | Team | Matches | + | = | - | Points | TB |
| 1 | 6 | Team MGD1 | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 285 |
| 2 | 9 | Hexamind Chess Team | 8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 260 |
| 3 | 5 | Freedom | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 292 |
| 4 | 4 | Uzbekistan | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 12 | 282 |
| 5 | 7 | Germany and Friends | 8 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 246 |
| 6 | 1 | WR Chess Team | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 248 |
| 7 | 8 | Ashdod Elit Chess Club | 8 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 226 |
| 8 | 3 | Malcolm's Mates | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 243.5 |
| 9 | 10 | Knight Dance | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 215.5 |
| 10 | 2 | KazChess | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 209.5 |
Anand Outplays Arjun, But Team MGD1 Still The One To Beat
Anand is the father of Indian chess, while 21-year-old Arjun, the world number-three, is one of his most promising disciples. There's always some extra spice, therefore, when such representatives of different generations get to meet at the board. In this case, Arjun "did a Magnus" by arriving late to the game.
Vishy is still waiting for a late Arjun! pic.twitter.com/JtxXsHJldN
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 12, 2025
It's unlikely what followed was retribution, but Anand was on the top of his game as he played the winning blow, 25...Rxb2!, capturing a bishop.
Anand said of his sacrifice:
I’d seen this but thought it didn’t work, but then I realised it has to work! So I spent a couple of minutes before making this move... I really worked out the whole line before entering it.
That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.
Anand joked afterward:
I feel like a one-trick pony, because my game with Aronian was essentially these two bishops as well! One of my best games with Levon in Wijk.
I feel like a one-trick pony, because my game with Aronian was essentially these two bishops as well!
—Viswanathan Anand
That was a third win in three games for Anand, playing for his team Freedom, but his fourth game didn't go quite so well. 25...g6? condemned the 15th world champion to a loss against GM David Navara.
"Then I unexpectedly won against Vishy Anand, which was very nice, especially considering my previous poor results," said the Czech number-one, who has struggled at times in London, but also inflicted the only losses on the 2017 and 2021 world rapid champions.
"After I heard Kramnik's reaction to my letter, I slept really poorly."
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) June 12, 2025
Interview with 🇨🇿 David Navara. pic.twitter.com/vNfS2K9GR2
For Arjun, meanwhile, things would go from bad to worse—he scored 0.5/4 for the day—but his team continued to lead. It rescued a 3-3 draw in the match against Anand's Freedom with a win on the bottom "recreational" board, which is something the team has been able to rely on!
As you might have guessed, the 1952 rating doesn't tell you everything about Atharvaa Tayade. Team captain GM Srinath Narayanan explained, "He used to be a very strong chess player and at some point he decided to go towards education and not pursue chess professionally, around when he was 14 or 15." Srinath noted Atharvaa got into the very competitive Indian Institutes of Technology and Management, which he compared to achieving the GM title. He also added that during lockdown in 2020-2021, Atharvaa "was able to beat some pretty good grandmasters."
Atharvaa's points would prove crucial not only in the first match of the day but also in beating GM Vincent Keymer's Germany and Friends 3.5-2.5 in round seven, as well as in taking down favorite WR Chess.
Favorite WR Chess Suffers Again In Rapid
WR Chess surprisingly failed to defend its Rapid crown in 2024, and the team has again given itself a mountain to climb in 2025. The start to day two went well, with a narrow win over Malcolm's Mates, including a nice win for GM Hikaru Nakamura over GM Michael Adams. That's one of the games covered in Nakamura's recap.
In the next round, however, both Nakamura and GM Alireza Firouzja let wins slip, so that a win for GM David Anton against GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda was decisive in MGD1 winning 4-2.
It would get worse for WR Chess, as it lost again in the third round of the day by the same scoreline, this time to Hexamind, after big wins for Murzin over GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and GM Vidit Gujrathi over GM Wesley So.
Trailing leaders MGD1 by four points was threatening to become a hopeless cause, but WR Chess and the other contenders for the crown would get a helping hand in the final round of the day.
Murzin, Dominguez, Divya Star As Hexamind Beats MGD1 To Catch Leader
Just when MGD1 was threatening to run away with the tournament, it was beaten and caught by Hexamind.
The victory felt like a statement, particularly when 18-year-old Murzin not only turned around a difficult position against Arjun but then fought on to win in a situation where a draw would clinch the match for his team.
That saw Hexamind catch MGD1, while the teams led by GMs Anand, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Keymer are just one point behind.
Apart from the race for the title, however, there was entertainment everywhere. Eleven-year-old Faustino Oro scored a fourth win in a row as he took down GM Nihal Sarin in round five after a great fight.
🇦🇷 11-year-old IM Faustino Oro (2457) stuns 🇮🇳 GM Nihal Sarin (2676) — and emotions overflow as his teammates rush to celebrate!
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) June 12, 2025
His crucial win helped secure a 3–3 draw for the team (Turkish Airlines Sports Club) — a result that meant everything. And it showed! pic.twitter.com/iWV7zQTWSK
The kid's enthusiasm is infectious.
"Firouzja is my favorite player." Interview with 11-year-old prodigy IM Faustino Oro! pic.twitter.com/R6xNayk5VE
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) June 12, 2025
GM Richard Rapport, meanwhile, suffered a shock loss when he played 89...Ke4?? against GM Boris Gelfand.
The clever point must have been that 90.g7?? loses to checkmate with 90...R4h2#, but unfortunately for Rapport, Gelfand could simply play 90.Bxh4, and it was time to resign.
Rapport could have been forgiven for collapsing after a game like that, but instead he went on to beat GMs Jorden van Foreest, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and Rauf Mamedov. The win over Mamedyarov featured some sparkling tactics.
There are four more rounds of rapid chess on Friday before our first champions are crowned.
How to watch?
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Daniel King and IM Jovanka Houska.
The 2025 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships run June 11-15 in London, UK, with over 50 teams of six players competing. Each team must feature at least one female player and one "recreational player," never rated 2000+. The Rapid is a 12-round Swiss with a time control of 15 minutes for all moves, plus a 10-second increment per move. The Blitz (3+2) begins with teams playing a round-robin in pools, before the top 16 play a knockout, where each clash features two mini-matches.
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.
