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Published on: Oct 24, 2025 03:54 pm IST
FIDE Chess World Cup 2025: D Gukesh is the top seed and Divya Deshmukh has been handed a wild card after winning the Women’s World Cup recently.
The Chess World Cup 2025 is scheduled to take place in Goa from October 31 to November 27, and to make things spicy, berths for the 2026 Candidates Tournament are at stake. The winner, runner-up and third-place finisher will bag berths at the 2026 Candidates. Indian fans will see 24 players in action, including top seed D Gukesh, who is also the reigning World Champion. The second and third seeds are also Indian GMs Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa. Meanwhile, Divya Deshmukh is the only Indian female in the event, having received a wild card after winning the Women’s World Cup this year.
The tournament will be an eight-round knockout event. The top 50 seeds will be given a bye in the second round. Meanwhile, the losers of the two semifinals will play a match for third place. Each round will have a classical time limit on the first two days and tie-breaks on the third day if required.
Full list of Indians participating in the 2025 Chess World Cup:
D Gukesh (Seed 1)
Arjun Erigaisi (Seed 2)
R Praggnanandhaa (Seed 3)
Vidit Gujrathi (Seed 19)
Aravindh Chithambaram (Seed 20)
Nihal Sarin (Seed 22)
Pentala Harikrishna (Seed 24)
Karthikeyan Murali (Seed 38)
Pranav V (Seed 60)
Sadhwani Raunak (Seed 62)
Pranesh M (Seed 70)
Mendonca Leon Luke (Seed 78)
Narayanan SL (Seed 81)
Iniyan Pa (Seed 92)
Karthik Venkataraman (Seed 109)
Diptayan Ghosh (Seed 117)
Ganguly Surya Shekhar (Seed 118)
Raja Rithvik R (Seed 129)
Aronyak Ghosh (Seed 143)
Lalit Baby MR (Seed 149)
Divya Deshmukh (WILD CARD) (Seed 150)
Gusain Himal (Seed 159)
Harshavardhan GB (Seed 160)
Neelash Saha (Seed 163)
Fans will also get to see the likes of Anish Giri, Wesley So, Vincent Keymer, and Hans Niemann in action. Rounds 1 to 3 will take place from November 1 to 9. November 10 will be a rest day, and then Round 46 will take place from November 11 to 19. November 20 has been assigned as a rest day, and then the last two rounds will be held from November 21 to 26.
