Schedule, Format, Top Players, Prize Money, and Everything You Need to Know
FIDE Chess World Cup 2025 Schedule, Format, Top Players, Prize Money: After 23 long years, the FIDE World Cup returns to India with Goa set to be the hosts this time around. A record number of 24 Indians will participate in the biennial event, which offers Candidates’ spots and will be headlined big names like world champion Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa R, Nihal Sarin. The event will also boast of huge foreign names with Hans Niemann, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Levon Aronian.
What is the format of the World Cup?
The FIDE World Cup 2025 will feature 206 players competing in a head-to-head, two-game knockout format over eight rounds. Each round spans three days: two classical games (between two players) on the first two days, followed tie-breaks on the third day, if necessary. In the first round, the top 50 players receive es, while players seeded from 51 to 206 compete, with pairings based on the principle of the top half versus the reversed lower half. The FIDE World Cup is the event that offers the top three finishers direct qualification for the 2026 Candidates Tournament, which determines the challenger for the World Chess Championship.
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Who are the Indians taking part in the World Cup?
The top seed of the tournament is world champion D. Gukesh who will be leading a star-studded Indian lineup. They cons of Praggnanandhaa R (courtesy of being World Cup 2023 second place finisher), Arjun Erigaisi (as per rating l in June 2025), Aravindh Chithambaram (June 2025 rating l), Nihal Sarin, Harikrishna Pentala, Raunak Sadhwani, Leon Luke Mendonca, Iniyan Pa, Pranav V, Raja Rithvik R, Narayanan SL, Pranesh M, Harshavardhan GB, Karthikeyan Murali, Idani Pouya, Karthik Venkataraman, Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Neelash Saha, Diptayan Ghosh, Aromyak Ghosh, Himal Gusain, Lalit Babu MR (all via continental spots) and Vidit Gujrathi (via Chess Olympiad spot).
Seed
Player Name
Rating
Birth Year
1
Gukesh D
2752
2006
2
Erigaisi Arjun
2773
2003
3
Praggnanandhaa R
2771
2005
19
Vidit Santosh Gujrathi
2716
1994
20
Aravindh Chithambaram VR
2711
1999
22
Nihal Sarin
2700
2004
24
Harikrishna Pentala
2697
1986
38
Karthikeyan Murali
2662
1999
60
Pranav V
2641
2006
62
Sadhwani Raunak
2641
2005
70
Pranesh M
2630
2006
78
Mendonca Leon Luke
2620
2006
81
Narayanan S L
2617
1998
92
Iniyan Pa
2599
2002
109
Karthik Venkataraman
2579
1999
117
Ghosh Diptayan
2573
1998
118
Ganguly Surya Shekhar
2573
1983
129
Raja Rithvik R
2541
2004
143
Aronyak Ghosh
2514
2003
149
Lalit Babu M R
2502
1993
150
Divya DeshmukhWILD CARD
2498
2005
159
Gusain Himal
2476
1993
160
Harshavardhan G B
2476
2003
163
Neelash Saha
2466
2002
Indian Express InfoGenIE
What is the full schedule of the World Cup?
The World Cup will start from November 1 and go on till November 26 with Round 1 scheduled for Nov 1-3 (including tie-breakers), Round 2 will take place from Nov 4 to 6 (including tie-breakers), followed Round 3 from Nov 7-9 (including tie-breakers). Then there’ll be Round 4 from Nov 11 to 13 (including tie-breakers) and round 5 from Nov 14-16 (including tie-breakers). The knockouts start with the quarterfinals scheduled to take place on Nov 17-19 (including tie-breakers), followed the semifinals from 21-23 (including tie-breakers). The final will take place from Nov 24 to 26 (including tie-breakers).
November 1, 2025: Round 1 Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 2, 2025: Round 1 Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 3, 2025: Round 1 Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 4, 2025: Round 2 Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 5, 2025: Round 2 Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 6, 2025: Round 2 Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 7, 2025: Round 3 Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 8, 2025: Round 3 Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 9, 2025: Round 3 Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 11, 2025: Round 4 Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 12, 2025: Round 4 Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 13, 2025: Round 4 Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 14, 2025: Round 5 Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 15, 2025: Round 5 Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 16, 2025: Round 5 Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 17, 2025: Quarterfinals Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 18, 2025: Quarterfinals Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 19, 2025: Quarterfinals Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 21, 2025: Semifinals Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 22, 2025: Semifinals Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 23, 2025: Semifinals Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM November 24, 2025: Finals Game 1 – 3:00 PM November 25, 2025: Finals Game 2 – 3:00 PM November 26, 2025: Finals Tiebreaks – 3:00 PM
What is the prize money for winning the World Cup?
The total prize money fund is $2 million from which the winner will get $ 120,000 while the runners-up will receive $ 85,000. The 3rd and 4th placed players will get $ 60,000 and $ 50,000 respectively.
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When and where will the Chess World Cup be livestreamed?
You can catch the World Cup in the FIDE YouTube + Chess.com as well as Chessbase.
