Wei Yi.
Credit: Special Arrangement
After the ouster of all the 24 Indians amongst 206 in fray, Wei Yi of China has now emerged as a favourite.
Yi is the only seed out of the top 15 who began this tournament. The FIDE World Cup format has never been too favourable for the ‘favourites’ and this time at Resort Rio in Goa, all the four semi-finalists are players who defied all odds, punched beyond their weight and knocked out higher rated players.
The top three finishers amongst Yei, Andrey Esipenko of Russia playing under the FIDE flag and the two Uzbeks Jakhovir Sindarov and Nodirbek Yakubboev are poised to make their debut at the Candidates Tournament scheduled next year in Cyprus.
The semifinal will comprise of 2 Classical games and ties resolved under faster time controls. Apart from the finalists, the two semifinal losers will feature in a Play off mini-match for the third and fourth place.
World Champion Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa were the three Indians who carried Indian hopes on their shoulders and their ouster has taken the sheen out of the event for the Indian fans who had gathered in Goa in large numbers. Incidentally, it was in 2002 that India hosted the World Cup in Hyderabad, albeit in a different format and India’s Viswanathan Anand had won and sadly there won't be an encore this time.
India appears to be a happy hunting ground for the Uzbeks,19-year-old Sindarov and 23-year-old Yakubboev were part of the 44th Olympiad gold medal winning team which India had hosted at Mamallapuram in 2022. Ironically Abdusattrov, their highest rated player seeded 8th here was knocked out early. Uzbekistan however is assured of at least one medal since one of their players will make it to the final. Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Anish Giri, Matthias Blubaum have already qualified for the Candidates 2026 while Praggnanandhaa too has almost made his qualification secure by topping the FIDE circuit. The top three from this event will join these players and the winner of the Candidates will challenge World Champion Gukesh for the title.
The 26-year-old Wei, despite his high rating has never hogged the limelight but is a dangerous player and if it can be recalled he is the youngest ever to cross the Elo 2700 barrier, at just 15 years. In the quarterfinal Erigaisi was higher rated than Wei but the Chinese is dominant under faster time controls and it was always expected that it would be difficult for Erigaisi in the tie-break. Wei with his strong but under-stated style along with his cool demeanour is the favourite to clinch the title.
The 23-year-old Esipenko hit the headlines in 2021 by defeating Magnus Carlsen becoming the first teenager in the world to defeat a reigning world champion. Apart from winning age category tournaments at world level, this is his best performance amongst the elites of chess.
The favourites have faltered and fumbled but on the plus side the World Cup in Goa may go down in history for revealing the future faces of chess.
Semifinal pairings: Nodirbek Yakubboev (Uzb) vs Javokhir Sindarov (Uzb); Wei Yi (Chn) vs Andrey Esipenko.