Atreyo Mukhopadhyay in Goa
Land of sun, sea, sand and sports. There are four Ss that Goa wants to be known as. From an Indian point of view, Tuesday, November 4, at the FIDE World Cup was about a fifth ‘S’ as well. That’s sorrow. All the top guns barring Arjun Erigaisi were held to draws by opponents rated lower than them in the second round of the prestigious knockout event. The list included world champion D Gukesh.
There is a second game to be played on Wednesday. If that doesn’t produce a result, there is an option for a tie-breaker to be played in the shorter formats a day later. There is still time for the emerging heroes of world chess to showcase their wares. They can demonstrate why they are rated so highly. This day, however, was not about those things. They couldn’t assert themselves against rivals determined to stick to their strengths and stonewall.
Not just Gukesh. R Praggnanandhaa, Vidit Gujrathi, Aravindh Chithambaram, Nihal Sarin and Pentala Harikrishna were all forced to split the point. Erigaisi was the lone big name to win. He defeated Martin Petrov with black pieces. Rated at 2540, the Bulgarian is well below the world No. 6, who had lost in the quarterfinals of the previous edition of this event in 2023. Erigaisi didn’t have to break a lot of sweat to show who the boss was. The same can’t be said of the other Indian big names, who are aspiring to change the world order and have taken steps in that direction.
Kazybek Nogerbek is an almost-unheard-of name when it comes to big events. The player from Kazakhstan has an ELO rating of 2543. He is ranked 385th in the world. Gukesh has a rating of 2763 and has a world ranking of nine. On paper, this was not supposed to be a gruelling tussle. But as it happens in sports, the underdog was up for a fight. Nogerbek resisted throughout a long game and held the overwhelming favourite. Gukesh is tired because he has had a long and busy schedule after winning the world crown last December. His efforts to penetrate didn’t yield results.
It was the same for Praggnanandhaa. This youngster was the fancied rival against Temur Kuybokarov of Uzbekistan, who represents Australia. Then again, the Indian could not break through. Vidit drew against Faustino Oro, the below-teen prodigy from Argentina. Aravindh was held by compatriot Karthik Venkatraman. Harikrishna drew against Arseniy Nesterov of Russia, while Nihal was forced to share the point with Stamatis Kourkoulos-Arditis of Greece, who ousted Divya Deshmukh in the first round.
There is time for the Indians to make amends, but it is running out. Reputations matter in sports but they are not sacrosanct or a privilege. They must get better and produce something special under pressure to live up to expectations.
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Top 50 players, including D. Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi, Nihal Sarin & Harikrishna, enter Round 2 of the FIDE World Cup.
Three will qualify for the Candidates — one will challenge the World Champion.@ThumsUpOfficial @atreyom… pic.twitter.com/EieaNoG1qe
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) November 4, 2025