D Gukesh will hope for an encore as he takes on a strong field, minus the top-three ranked players in the world, at the FIDE World Cup, that gets underway here on Saturday.
With Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, and the American duo of Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana not competing, R Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi are the other two big names who will try and make a mark in the prestigious tournament, which offers three qualification spots for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament — the gateway to the World Championship match later next year.
As many as 206 players from 80 countries will be in Goa for the next four weeks playing the eight-round, single-elimination knockout event, where each match consists of two classical games played under standard time controls. If the score is tied after the classical games, the players will return on the third day for a series of rapid and blitz tie-breaks to decide the winner.
Among the three top Indians, the stakes are the lowest for Gukesh, who being the world champion, doesn’t need to go through the Candidates cycle to qualify for the World Championship. On the eve of the tournament, the new trophy that the winner will receive was christened as the Viswanathan Anand trophy, in honour of the five-time world champion from India.
This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
