Pranav V
The first game of the first round of the FIDE World Cup 2025 brought in mixed results for India with Reigning World junior Champion Pranav V, Suryashekhar Ganguly, Inayan P and Pranesh M scoring victories out of the 16 players who began their campaign today. A draw tomorrow will suffice for these four to advance to the second round of this 206 player knock-out tournament.
The top 50 rated players including 8 Indians are directly seeded into the second round which begins from 4th November. This knock-out event will comprise of 8 rounds with each player playing two classical games with alternate colours against the same opponent in each round. A tie-would be resolved under shorter time controls.
S L Narayanan, Leon Mendonca, Raunak Sadhwani, Diptayan Ghosh, Karthi Venkataraman held to draws as were Rohit Babu M R, Raja Rithvik were the Indians who drew their first game and need a victory tomorrow in the second game of the first round to qualify to the second round.
Wild-card entrant and recently concluded Women’s World Cup winne,r Divya Deshmukh, the only female face of the tournament ended on the losing side as did Aronyak Ghosh , Himal Gusain, Neelash Saha, Harshvardhan G B. All of them desperately need a victory tomorrow to force a tie-break which will be played on Monday under shorter time controls.
Turkish teen sensation Erdogmus Yagiz Kaan all of 14-years had hit the record books as the youngest ever to cross the Elo 2600 barrier got off to a blazing start, winning in just 17 moves against much lower rated Abugenda Nagi. Former World Champion finalist Vassily Ivanchul also started on a winning note while another young sensation 12-yer-old Oro Faustino drew against Antr Brkic.
Divya Deshmukh did not appear in any comfort for most part of the game against Stamatis Kourkou of Greece who employed the Nimzo Indian defence. Severely short of time, Divya had to watch helplessly as Black gained an advantageous position with a passed pawn on the Queen side. Kourkov played accurately to pocket the point after 41 moves with both of his rooks escorting the passed- pawn to the queening square
Surya Shekhar Ganguly was involved in a Ruy Lopez game against Ahmad Ahmadzadb. Ganguly played well to pocket the point after 37 moves after a dubious bishop move on the 27th turn virtually shut the game for his opponent.
Pranesh versus Satbek Akhmedinov encounter also went the Ruy-Lopez way. White had castled on the King-side and by the 26th turn it was obvious that Akhmidenov couldn’t castle with a ruptured King-side. Pranesh’s pieces infiltrated and had the Black King scuttling for cover with his queen, rook and bishop combining beautifully to target the King..
The inaugural moves are made by FIDE President, Arkady Dvorkovich and AICF President, Nitin Narang. They made the first moves on GM Jeffery Xiong and CM Yiheng Li, and GM Pranav Venkatesh and Ala Eddine Boulrens, respectively.