Grandmaster Koneru Humpy will spearhead the Indian challenge in the Women's candidates' chess tournament that will get underway in Toronto, Canada from Wednesday.
Slowly but surely emerging as one of India's key players, International Master Divya Deshmukh stunned higher-ranked compatriot Harika Dronavalli 2-0 in the tiebreaks to enter the semifinals of the FIDE World Women's Chess Cup in Batumi, Georgia.
In an event completely dominated by the Chinese, Ju Wenjun went on to snare the world title, defeating compatriot Lei Tingjie 3.5-2.5.
Arjun Erigaisi joined Hikaru Nakamura in the lead at the Norway Chess 2025 after handing compatriot World champion Gukesh Dommaraju a second straight defeat on Tuesday. After two rounds of action-packed games in Stavanger, Erigaisi and Nakamura share the lead with 4.5 points each.
Reigning World champion Dommaraju Gukesh's roller-coaster ride continues. The Indian Grandmaster suffered defeat in an Armageddon tie-break and slipped to tied-fifth place, while Arjun Erigaisi upset American world No.2 Hikaru Nakamura to maintain fourth position in the Norway Chess tournament.
International Master Divya Deshmukh, who is waiting to become a Grandmaster, had a tough day in office as she was outplayed by Zhu Jiner of China in the return game of the pre-quarterfinals in the FIDE World Women's Chess Cup in Batumi, Georgia on Thursday.
FIDE Women's World Cup final: Humpy draws with Divya in first game
While Vantika, Harika and Vaishali have an uphill task in the first set of tie-break games, they can still make it to the round of 16.
R Vaishali also made it to the next round, defeating Ouellet Maili-Jade of Canada in another Indian victory of the day while Divya Deshmukh ousted Kesaria Mgeladze of Georgia.
'Right now, I'm happy with the game that I played today. Tomorrow (Friday), hopefully, another good game I can play. And whatever the result will be, we'll see later. But yeah, just focusing on playing the game.'
Reigning world champion D Gukesh continued to turn adversity into opportunity as he wriggled out of a virtually intractable position to beat compatriot Arjun Erigaisi for the first time ever in a classical game and jump to sole second position after round 7 of the Norway Chess.
Vantika Agrawal humbled former World champion Anna Ushenina in the second round of FIDE Women's World Chess Cup in Batumi, Georgia, on Wednesday.
This marks the first time that four players from a single country have reached the quarter-finals of the FIDE Women's World Chess Cup.
Koneru Humpy edged Chinese GM Lei Tingjie in the tiebreaks in the semis to set up an all-Indian final against compatriot Divya Deshmukh in the FIDE Women's Chess World Cup.
Viswanathan Anand is the third Indian in the top 10, occupying the 10th spot with an ELO rating of 2750.
Grandmaster Koneru Humpy held China's Tingjie Lei to a comfortable draw with black pieces, while Divya Deshmukh's solid defence frustrated former women's world champion Zhongyi Tan in the first game of the FIDE Women's World Cup semifinals in Batumi, Georgia, on Tuesday.
With Vantika's hard-earned victory there are still five Indians left in the last 32 stage of this US$691,250 prize money event with an additional bonus of making it to the Women's candidates' tournament slated in 2026 for the top three finishers.
Rameshbabu Vaishali won the women's qualifier scoring 9.5 points out of 11 to advance to the quarter-finals of the World Blitz Championship.
Reigning World champion D Gukesh finally got his revenge on Magnus Carlsen as he pounced on a blunder by the World No 1 to defeat him for the first time in a classical game.
Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh made a huge stride forward, defeating second seed Jiner Zhu of China in the first game of the pre-quarterfinals of the FIDE World Women's Chess Cup in Batumi, Georgia, on Wednesday.
International Master Divya Deshmukh stormed into the final, defeating former world champion Zhongyi Tan of China in the second game of the semifinals and winning the mini-match 1.5-0.5 in the FIDE Women's World Chess Cup in Batumi, Georgia, on Wednesday.
Apart from Tan, top seed Tingjie Lei of China also made it to the semifinals at the expense of Nana Dzagnidze of Georgia.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa lost to World Champion Ding Liren in the Armageddon tie-breaker after the two played out a draw under normal time control in the second round.
Five-time World champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway got the better of D Gukesh in the opening round of Norway Chess.
'She is now a role model for the upcoming young generation. And I am sure that this victory will definitely motivate and inspire the Indian women, and those who are coming up.'
Gukesh suffers crushing loss against Nakamura, Erigaisi wins in Norway Chess
The stars competing at the Norway Chess event were in for an authentic Wild West surprise when they had to don cowboy hats, roper boots, well worn-out jeans to indulge in some rodeo activity.
On pure experience of playing big games, Humpy goes in the final as the favourite against compatriot Deshmukh.
Teenaged Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh shot into sole lead after defeating Firouzja Alireza of France in the 13th and penultimate round of Candidates' Chess tournament in Toronto on Saturday, his quest for the extraordinary placing him on the cusp of becoming the youngest ever World Championship contender.
China's Ding Liren was crowned on Sunday as the 17th world chess champion in a tense match against Russian-born Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana, Kazakhstan, in the last chapter of an odds-defying sequence of events.
After the first game against the same opponent ended in a draw, Harika was with black pieces in the second and she employed a French defence and Kosteniuk did not have many answers.
Praggnanandhaa did not have to sweat hard to hold Caruana under Classical but in the Armageddon the American was a transformed player as he took advantage of his white pieces.
'When I started my first game on Day 3 I did not imagine I would be at the top. My hope was to reach top three. I didn't expect to play the tie-break games'
Vaishali defeated Muzychuk for the second time in the event in the Armageddon. It was a finely played Classical game wherein neither players could reach an advantage but in the Armageddon Vaishali took advantage of her better placed rooks to call the shots.
Chess will crown a new world champion when Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren begin their battle on Sunday.
Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa scored a massive, hard-earned victory over world number two Fabiano Caruana of the United States and made his way to the top 10 of world rankings after the end of fifth round of the Norway Chess tournament in Stavanger.
Vaishali stretched her lead to 2.5 points following her second win under classical time control.
Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi scored crushing victories, while D Gukesh held on to the joint top spot with a draw in a brilliant sixth-round outing for the Indian men's team at the Candidates Chess Tournament in Toronto.
Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa got off to a flier and defeated Firouzja Alireza of France in the Armageddon game in the first round of Norway Chess tournament in Stavanger on Tuesday.
Gukesh to clash with Alireza on what promises to be a photo finish
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