While The World Watches Goa, An Indian Takes Centre Stage At The President's Cup In Tajikistan
There's chaos at the FIDE World Cup in Goa right now with favourites dropping like flies. Saturday and Sunday saw a host of big names going out and the tournament is now wide open.
You can find out all about it on the official event site here.
But, while the spotlight-sucking extravaganza in Goa pauses for a rest on Monday, we just wanted to draw your attention to another international event: the President’s Cup of the Republic of Tajikistan 2025.
Not all chess tournaments are created equal. We understand that, and this isn't the World Cup.
But with its total prize fund of $50,000 and a GM-stacked roster, the President's Cup's organisers claim it is one of the most significant sporting events in the region.
Central Asian chess is seriously on the up right now. With the emergence of players like Uzbekistan's GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, one of the weekend's high-profile casualties in Goa, the rise of chess in neighbouring countries has been well documented. Tajikistan is keen to show it's a hotbed of talent too.
Having partnered with the Chess Federation of Tajikistan, we're proud to support that and play a part in the President's Cup, the country's top tournament, which started on Monday in its capital Dushanbe.
Going into the tournament, eight national online qualification tournaments were staged exclusively on worldchess.com, FIDE's official online gaming platform, to determine the strongest players in the country.
Now the competition has reached its over-the-board stage. Round 1 started on Monday, and runs until November 16.
The tournament is split into two groups playing a 9-round Swiss with a time control of 90+30.
Group A has no fewer than 83 titled players. Indian GM Pranav Anand is the top seed. The 2006-born player is one of four grandmasters from the World Cup host country.
GM Artem Uskov, a 15-year-old Russian prodigy, is one to look out for. Uskov won the U12 Open category of the FIDE World Cadet Chess Championship in 2022. It will be fascinating to see how this 2513-rated youngster gets on and whether this event will launch him.
The top-seeded players in Group B are WIM Ekaterina Smirnova (rated 2153 FIDE) and FM Samandar Shermuhammadov (2142 FIDE). You can find out more from the Chess Federation of Tajikistan's website here. The pairings and results are posted here.
Hopefully, this is the first of many such collaborations with national federations that help the grassroots game grow.
Now back to the World Cup...