FIDE Chess World Cup 2025, Round 4 Game 2 Results and Standings Highlights: Only three Indians remain in the FIDE World Cup after Wednesday saw Pranav V and Karthik Venkataraman get eliminated from the race in the fourth round. But all the three Indians left standing–Arjun Erigaisi, R. Praggnanandhaa and Pentala Harikrishna–will have to fight it out in the tiebreaks on Thursday after both their classical games ended in draws.
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Tomorrow, Arjun will fight with Peter Leko while Pragg battles Daniil Dubov. The third Indians in the fray, Pentala Harikrishna, will take on Nils Grandelius.
An unprecedented total of 24 Indians had entered the FIDE World Cup, and over the course of four rounds, 21 of them have been eliminated. The first round saw seven Indians knocked out of the event; the second round had as many Indians crash out of the title race. The third round saw the fall of five Indians, including top seed D. Gukesh and former Candidates player Vidit Gujrathi.
The top three finishers of World Cup 2025 will get themselves a ticket to Cyprus for 2026 Candidates Tournament where the winner of that event will get to challenge the reigning World Champion.
SCROLL PAST THE INTERACTIVE BOARDS AND THE LIVE STREAM VIDEOS TO FOLLOW OUR UPDATES IN REAL-TIME FROM THE FIDE WORLD CUP’S ROUND 4 GAME 2
INTERACTIVE: Arjun Erigaisi vs Peter Leko (HUN)
INTERACTIVE: R Praggnanandhaa vs Daniil Dubov (RUS)
INTERACTIVE: Harikrishna Pentala vs Nils Grandelius (SWE)
INTERACTIVE: Pranav V vs Nodirbek Yakubboev (UZB)
INTERACTIVE: Karthik Venkataraman vs Le Quang Leim (VIE)
After life-changing Goa trip in 2002, Levon Aronian is back for a good time, but wins keep on coming
Unlike other grandmasters, Levon Aronian has been making the most of his time in Goa visiting the beach and local restaurants with friends and family.
(Instagram: Levon Aronian)
As the FIDE World Cup has lurched towards its middlegame, the creases on grandmasters’ foreheads have gotten deeper. Stress levels have shot up through the roof like an eval bar after a blunder. Everyone has been speaking about the nerves they’re experiencing at the World Cup. It’s why the World Cup has been an unprecedented carnage of 2700-somethings being defeated by lower-rated opponents.
Levon Aronian is not one of them.
While many grandmasters spend hours in their hotel rooms hunkering behind lines and lines of prep, Aronian looks every bit like a man who’s in Goa for a vacation. And loving his time there. Since he arrived in Goa, one week before the tournament actually started, he’s explored as much of the state as he can, wandering off to beaches and posting selfies with the cows there or taking his wife and friends to an Armenian restaurant in Panaji.
