India, July 21 – This year's FIDE World Cup in 2025 will be held in India from October 30 to November 27. The WC title will be contested by the top grandmasters in the world, and the competition will serve as a qualifier for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament.

The competition will be conducted in a knockout format with 206 players, with the losing player being eliminated in each round. The competition will use a single-elimination system, with three days allotted to each round, including two classical games on the first two days and tie-breakers on the third. The top 50 players will receive byes in the first round, while those seeded 51–206 will play in it, with their pairings determined by the principle of top half versus the reversed lower half.

The top three finishers will automatically qualify for the 2026 Candidates. The World Chess Championship will be contested by D. Gukesh and the Candidates champion.

Magnus Carlsen (2023), Jan-Krzysztof Duda (2021, Teimour Radjabov (2019), Levon Aronian (2017 and 2005), Sergey Karjakin (2015), Vladimir Kramnik (2013), Peter Svidler (2011), Boris Gelfand (2009), and Gata Kamsky (2007) are the previous FIDE World Cup champions.

The reigning World Champion (as of June 1, 2025), the top four finishers from the FIDE World Cup 2023, the reigning Women's World Champion (as of June 1, 2025), the 2024 World Junior Champion U-20, the qualifiers from continental events (80 places), and the top 13 players in the June 2025 FIDE standard rating list who have not met any other qualifying requirements are all eligible for the FIDE World Cup.

Additionally, each of the top 100 national federations from the open section of the 2024 Chess Olympiad will receive a spot, while the FIDE President will have two candidates for the organizer and four candidates overall.

At the 2023 World Cup, R Praggnanandhaa came in second place after Carlsen. At the moment, Gukesh is the current World Champion.

In a FIDE press release, CEO Emil Sutovsky stated, "We are thrilled to bring the FIDE World Cup 2025 to India, a country with a deep-rooted passion and support for chess. Indian chess fans' enthusiasm has always been remarkable, and we anticipate great interest in the event among local chess lovers, both on-site and online. FIDE is dedicated to hosting a large number of side activities that include tournament players and chess stars in order to improve the overall experience.

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