The 11-round $625,000 Fide Grand Swiss, which began on Thursday in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the capital of the Silk Road, will decide two of the eight qualifiers for next year’s world title Candidates.
India has a strong hand, as the world champion, Gukesh Dommaraju (ineligible to qualify), is joined by the world No 4, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, the world No 5, Arjun Erigaisi, and the world No 27, Vidit Gujrathi, who won the 2023 Grand Swiss in Douglas, Isle of Man. Praggnanandhaa is already well placed to qualify via the 2025 Fide congress circuit, from which the world No 3, Fabiano Caruana, qualified in 2024.
There is also a Candidates spot for the highest Fide-rated player, subject to completing 40 rated classical games. The world No 2, Hikaru Nakamura , who still needed 22 of the 40 after eight in the American Cup and 10 in Stavanger, sparked controversy last weekend by choosing to enter the Louisiana State Championship, where he won all seven games against opponents with ratings between 2250 and 1563, compared with the US star’s 2807.
The upshot is that Caruana, Nakamura, and Praggnanandhaa are already almost assured of qualification, Samarkand will decide two qualifiers, and the remaining three will come via the World Cup knockout in Goa, India, in the first half of November.
The open door to the Candidates is already half-shut, with ambitious would-be qualifiers such as Germany’s Vincent Keymer and USA’s controversial Hans Niemann still searching for a route in.
Thursday’s opening round at Samarkand saw a high percentage of draws, with a star performance by Gukesh as Black against France’s No 3, Étienne Bacrot. In the early 2020s when Gukesh was rising to the top, his major strength was performing well in Swisses. Again he handled the game impeccably, grinding down his opponent and producing an exchange sacrifice at the right moment. Could this be the tournament where Gukesh finally proves himself a worthy world champion after several disappointments?
Gukesh faltered in round two from a winning position against 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus of Turkey, but elsewhere the favourites advanced. The world No 8, Alireza Firouzja (France), won his second game to reach 2/2, while Gukesh was joined on 1.5/2 by his fellow Indians Praggnanandhaa and Erigaisi, as well as by the former world title challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), the world No 10, Keymer, and Uzbekistan’s world No 11, Nodirbek Abdusattorov. Nikita Vitiugov, the former Russian champion and now England’s only representative at Samarkand, made a solid draw for the second successive day, while Niemann also halved again.
After two of the 11 Grand Swiss rounds, there are just three survivors on a maximum 2/2: Firouzja, Parham Maghsoodloo (Iran) and Anton Demchenko (Slovenia).
The $230,000 Women’s Grand Swiss is also under way, and in that event round one proved a real shocker. Both top seeds, Anna Muzychuk and Tan Zhongyi, were beaten, the Ukrainian in bizarre fashion, as, with five moves to make in 90 seconds and a trivially winning minor piece ending, she forgot about her clock and overstepped.
Other prominent round one women’s losers included Anna Muzychuk’s sister and former world women’s champion, Mariya Muzychuk, the US champion, Carissa Yip, and Russia’s Polina Shuvalova and Valentina Gunina, who took a hot rook’s pawn and found her bishop trapped.
After two rounds of the Women’s Grand Swiss, India’s Vaishali Rameshbabu, who won the event in 2023, shared the lead on 2/2 with the little-known Austrian Olga Badelka. All the other 54 competitors have dropped at least half a point.
Only Vitiugov of England’s top grandmasters is playing in Samarkand. The others are preparing for a major team event next month, the European Team Championship in Batumi, Georgia, where England are seeded No 5 in the open event and No 11 in the women’s.
Howell will be absent, so the likely board order will be Vitiugov, the British champion, Michael Adams, Gawain Maroroa Jones, Luke McShane and the 16-year-old Shreyas Royal. England women’s probable board order is Jovanka Houska, Elmira Mirzoeva, Lan Yao, Harriet Hunt and the 10-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan.
Entries are still open for the 2025 UK Blitz Championships, with regional qualifiers in progress for the open and women’s finals to be played on Saturday 22 November in Leamington Spa. Several hundred players have already entered and more are expected.
The time limit is three minutes per player per game, plus a two seconds per move increment. Interested? You can try your hand at blitz right now. Instant battle grounds are available at lichess and chess.com, where you can expect to be paired with an opponent within a few seconds.
The first qualifier took place at Hampton on Saturday and was won impressively by Royal, England’s youngest ever grandmaster, who was unbeaten with 13.5/15.
Online entry is available here, entries to date can be viewed here, while dates and venues of future qualifiers are here.
A video has emerged of Bobby Fischer being crowned as world champion in 1972 at the end of his historic match in Reykjavik against Boris Spassky. As the Fide president, Dr Max Euwe, himself a former world champion, hands him the gold medal, Fischer says: “There is no name on it.” Euwe replies: “They did not know it,” and they both laugh.
Euwe saved the Fischer-Spassky match from collapse by his flexible interpretation of the rules, and was the nicest of all the world champions. After I lost to him at Paignton 1951, he spent half an hour giving me advice on rook endings.
3988: 1 Bd3+! Nxd3 (if Qxd3 2 Rc7+! Kh8 3 Qf6+ Rg7 4 Qxg7 mate) 2 Qxh5+ Kg7 3 Qg6+ Kh8 4 Qh6 mate. Black can hold out longer by 1…Rg6 2 Bxg6+ Nxg6 3 Qxg6+ Kh8 when 4 Nf7+?!? is illegal but 4 Qxh5+ Kg7 5 Rf2! soon mates.
