GM Parham Maghsoodloo drew against GM Arjun Erigaisi to remain sole leader of the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss going into the only rest day, while GMs Anish Giri and Nihal Sarin both won sharp games to join a six-player pack half a point behind. World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju sank to a second loss in a row, this time against Greek GM Nikolas Theodorou, with GM Vincent Keymer the only star losing in round five to score a bounce-back win—he defeated GM Robert Hovhannisyan in 114 moves and almost 7.5 hours.Â
GMs Vaishali Rameshbabu and Kateryna Lagno are back as co-leaders of the 2025 FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss after defeating IMs Ulviyya Fataliyeva and Dinara Wagner respectively. GM Antoaneta Stefanova joins IM Guo Qi half a point behind after winning the battle of the former world champions against GM Tan Zhongyi.
Round seven is on Thursday, September 11, starting at 6 a.m. ET / 12:00 CEST / 3:30 p.m. IST.
Standings
Maghsoodloo maintained the sole lead with a draw, but the pack of players half a point behind grew to six.Â
FIDE Grand Swiss Standings After Round 6
In the Women’s Grand Swiss, meanwhile, the four-way tie for the lead was reduced to two again, with Lagno and Vaishali both winning their games.
FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss Standings After Round 6
Open: Giri, Nihal Join Chasing Pack As Gukesh Loses 2nd Game
After only three draws in the top-10 games in round five, we saw a reversal with only three wins, but once again that included a loss for the world champion.
Round 6 Results: Open
Check out the full games and results.Â
After the bloodbath of round five it was no surprise things were a little quieter in round six, and one almost instant draw was entirely understandable—after playing for over eight hours the previous day, 14-year-old GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus didn’t go for a fight against a player working as his coach, GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.Â
After the 190-move draw yesterday, Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus makes an instant 16-move draw against his coach Shakhriyar Mamedyarov! https://t.co/QvEoQyxqh9 pic.twitter.com/MBxSMAyTli
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 9, 2025
Erdogmus has already done enough in Samarkand to leave one observer, world number-one Magnus Carlsen, very impressed.
“Erdogmus is really, really good, at almost unprecedented levels at that age.”
– Magnus on who has impressed him the most at the FIDE Grand Swiss. pic.twitter.com/NfS2pXiiZE
— chess24 (@chess24com) September 9, 2025
Other draws flowed from the tournament situation. Maghsoodloo, on 4.5/5, saw no need to go for a fight with the white pieces against world number-five Arjun and the game fizzled out in 38 moves.
That left three players who could potentially catch Maghsoodloo in the lead, including 18-year-old French Champion Marc’Andria Maurizzi, who was on a run of three wins in a row. Early on in his game against Giri’s Najdorf he seemed to be on top, but in the end the Dutch star won in only 27 moves—after castling on move 25!
That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.Â
Giri joined the group of players on +3, half a point behind Maghsoodloo, as did Nihal, who brought at least a temporary end to what has been a fairy tale for 23-year-old 2590-rated Polish GM Szymon Gumularz.
White was already under pressure when Gumularz cracked with 21.Rf4?, allowing Nihal what he called “this very cute tactic.”
After a second win in a row, and a third in total, Nihal commented, “So far I’m extremely happy—I really couldn’t have asked for more!”
Asked about the Indian chess boom, Nihal said, “My role is really nothing for now,” but, on the cusp of 2700, the 21-year-old still has the chance to follow in the footsteps of his higher-rated countrymen.Â
That brings us to the other decisive game on the top-10 boards, and another shocking blow for the reigning world champion. Gukesh surprised his Greek opponent Theodorou in the opening and seemed to have every chance of bouncing back after the loss to GM Abhimanyu Mishra, but then everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the 19-year-old. He stumbled into a position where Black’s connected passed pawns were unstoppable, then suffered the pain of incorrectly claiming a draw by repetition and only giving his opponent another two minutes to confirm he was winning.
The losing move had come earlier, on move 34.
The good news for Gukesh is that he has no need to qualify for the Candidates (which will choose his successor), while he’s also shown in the past he can recover from adversity. Most recently that involved starting Norway Chess with losses to Carlsen and Arjun before hitting back to beat GM Hikaru Nakamura in round three—and both Carlsen and Arjun in the second half of the tournament.
Theodorou, meanwhile, had a different problem: “Today I was hoping to be done earlier so I could play Titled Tuesday, but unfortunately I wasn’t able!”
That topped our list of upsets, which includes GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave seeing his Candidates hopes hit when a Grunfeld line tried by Nihal against Keymer in Chennai once again failed badly, this time against Armenian GM Shant Sargsyan.
FIDE Grand Swiss Round 6 Upset Wins
| Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg | Result | Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg |
| GM Gukesh Dommaraju (3) | 2767 | 0 – 1 | GM Nikolas Theodorou (53) | 2646 | ||
| GM Shant Sargsyan (43) | 2653 | 1 – 0 | GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (11) | 2738 | ||
| GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac (29) | 2674 | 0 – 1 | GM Leon Luke Mendonca (83) | 2615 | ||
| GM Radoslaw Wojtaszek (38) | 2661 | 0 – 1 | GM Anton Korobov (81) | 2616 | ||
| GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre (45) | 2651 | 0 – 1 | GM Cristobal Henriquez Villagra (97) | 2594 | ||
| GM Aleksandar Indjic (47) | 2650 | 0 – 1 | GM Evgeniy Najer (85) | 2613 | ||
| GM Andy Woodward (108) | 2557 | 1 – 0 | GM Daniil Yuffa (49) | 2648 | ||
| GM Haik M. Martirosyan (66) | 2628 | 0 – 1 | GM Ortik Nigmatov (113) | 2488 |
The stars who lost in round five struggled to hit back. We’ve already seen Gukesh’s loss, while top-seed GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu looked in some trouble against GM Rauf Mamedov in a game that culminated in the beautiful 25…Rxe3!. It turns out, however, that the move was only good enough to draw, which is what happened in the game, though only after the players reached bare kings on move 56.
The one top-10 star who did hit back was Keymer, on a day when the German top-two found some remarkable bishop sacrifices, both on an empty square on move 14, and both allowing a capture by a bishop on g7.
GM Matthias Bluebaum’s point was to clear a path for the a1-rook to get to d1 and triple up on the d7-bishop. It was a strong idea that worked, but Mishra found enough tricks of his own to hold a draw and stretch his unbeaten classical streak to 62 games.
Keymer’s point, meanwhile, was that after 14…Bxf6 he had 15.Qf3!, hitting that bishop and the bishop on c6.
Again it was a neat and unusual tactic that didn’t dramatically alter the balance of the game, but this time the German star kept a nagging edge which was converted into a position with two rooks against Hovhannisyan’s queen. The position was likely drawn, but Keymer could grind and grind and kept making progress until it was unclear when the position had turned into a winning one. He wrapped up victory in 114 moves and over seven hours of play.
There were some painful misses—GM Nodirbek Yakubboev failed to exploit a rush of blood to the head by GM V Pranav, and two-time Candidates winner GM Ian Nepomniachtchi is still in the doldrums on +1 after failing to win a dominant position against veteran GM Alexei Shirov.
Let’s end, however, with one more win, that took GM Hans Niemann to 4/6, a point behind the leader. The American GM explained he had reason to be cautious against local Uzbek GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov after their game in Sharjah in 2024:
I actually lost to him once when I had a very high fever and I overpushed with the black pieces. I had quite bad memories of overpushing with Black against him, so I didn’t want to repeat that, but thankfully I got quite a nice opening.
Up to a point things were double-edged, but then Niemann took over.
So Niemann is in striking distance as we cross the halfway mark, though he commented, “I’m miserable here!” referring to the long time control.  Â
After the rest day, Niemann plays the player who’s played the longest game so far, 14-year-old Erdogmus, while it’s Nihal who will get a shot at Maghsoodloo on top board. Gukesh, two points behind the leader, faces another Turkish prodigy, 16-year-old GM Ediz Gurel.Â
FIDE Grand Swiss Round 7 Pairings (Top 21)
| # | White | FED | Rtg | Result | Black | FED | Rtg |
| 1 | GM Nihal Sarin (4.5) | 2693 | – | GM Parham Maghsoodloo (5) | 2692 | ||
| 2 | GM Arjun Erigaisi (4.5) | 2771 | – | GM Matthias Bluebaum (4.5) | 2671 | ||
| 3 | GM Anish Giri (4.5) | 2746 | – | GM Abhimanyu Mishra (4.5) | 2611 | ||
| 4 | GM Alireza Firouzja (4) | 2754 | – | GM Nodirbek Yakubboev (4) | 2681 | ||
| 5 | GM Nikolas Theodorou (4) | 2646 | – | GM Vincent Keymer (4) | 2751 | ||
| 6 | GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov (4) | 2748 | – | GM Amin Tabatabaei (4) | 2673 | ||
| 7 | GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (4) | 2741 | – | GM Shant Sargsyan (4) | 2653 | ||
| 8 | GM Hans Moke Niemann (4) | 2733 | – | GM Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus (4) | 2646 | ||
| 9 | GM Vidit Gujrathi (4) | 2712 | – | GM Marc’Andria Maurizzi (4) | 2610 | ||
| 10 | GM V Pranav (4) | 2596 | – | GM Jorden van Foreest (4) | 2692 | ||
| 11 | GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (3.5) | 2785 | – | GM Maxim Rodshtein (4) | 2645 | ||
| 12 | GM Levon Aronian (3.5) | 2744 | – | GM Abhimanyu Puranik (3.5) | 2640 | ||
| 13 | GM Rauf Mamedov (3.5) | 2651 | – | GM Ian Nepomniachtchi (3.5) | 2742 | ||
| 14 | GM Leon Luke Mendonca (3.5) | 2615 | – | GM Yu Yangyi (3.5) | 2714 | ||
| 15 | GM Richard Rapport (3.5) | 2711 | – | GM Ivan Cheparinov (3.5) | 2627 | ||
| 16 | GM Samuel Sevian (3.5) | 2692 | – | GM Szymon Gumularz (3.5) | 2590 | ||
| 17 | GM Daniil Dubov (3.5) | 2691 | – | GM Andy Woodward (3.5) | 2557 | ||
| 18 | GM Alexei Shirov (3.5) | 2616 | – | GM Andrey Esipenko (3.5) | 2687 | ||
| 19 | GM Cristobal Henriquez Villagra (3.5) | 2594 | – | GM Nikita Vitiugov (3.5) | 2666 | ||
| 20 | GM Ivan Saric (3.5) | 2655 | – | GM Mateusz Bartel (3.5) | 2581 | ||
| 21 | GM Ediz Gurel (3) | 2631 | – | GM Gukesh Dommaraju (3) | 2767 |
Women: Stefanova Shocks Tan As Lagno, Vaishali LeadÂ
There were just three draws on the top boards in the Women’s section, with Lagno and Vaishali currently occupying the two Candidates spots.
Round 6 Results: Women
Check out the full games and results.
The tournament frontrunners Vaishali and Lagno both won their clashes against co-leaders, though in different fashions. Vaishali dominated from the start against Fataliyeva, who found herself unable to castle until it was too late.
Lagno, meanwhile, was close to winning on move 10, then let the advantage slip, then eventually ground out a win after getting a huge helping hand from Wagner near the end.
Two players kept within half a point of the leaders: Guo Qi, who positionally outplayed her opponent IM Khanim Balajayeva in a seemingly quiet position, and Stefanova, who scored a curious win against Tan. When the 46-year-old was asked about it being “strange” she replied, reasonably, “I didn’t think it was that strange, from my side!”
What was strange was that Tan played extremely fast, building up an hour advantage on the clock that she kept to the very end, while also playing moves below her strength. Stefanova was soon completely winning, and only had to make sure she didn’t lose on time.
Tan is already qualified to the Candidates, which lessens the blow of her being the top seed to suffer an upset defeat in round six.
FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss Round 6 Upset Wins
| Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg | Result | Player (Seed) | FED | Rtg |
| GM Tan Zhongyi (2) | 2531 | 0 – 1 | GM Antoaneta Stefanova (27) | 2395 | ||
| IM Aleksandra Maltsevskaya (37) | 2379 | 1 – 0 | IM Yuliia Osmak (7) | 2478 | ||
| WGM Anna Shukhman (18) | 2420 | 0 – 1 | IM Irina Bulmaga (25) | 2400 | ||
| IM Oliwia Kiolbasa (24) | 2405 | 0 – 1 | GM Irina Krush (44) | 2366 |
As Lagno and Vaishali have already played each other (a draw), they face the players half a point behind, Stefanova and Guo.
FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss Round 7 Pairings (Top 10)
| # | White | FED | Rtg | Result | Black | FED | Rtg |
| 1 | GM Antoaneta Stefanova (4.5) | 2395 | – | GM Kateryna Lagno (5) | 2505 | ||
| 2 | GM Vaishali Rameshbabu (5) | 2452 | – | IM Guo Qi (4.5) | 2371 | ||
| 3 | GM Bibisara Assaubayeva (4) | 2505 | – | IM Irina Bulmaga (4) | 2400 | ||
| 4 | GM Mariya Muzychuk (4) | 2484 | – | WIM Afruza Khamdamova (4) | 2409 | ||
| 5 | IM Stavroula Tsolakidou (4) | 2445 | – | GM Olga Girya (4) | 2386 | ||
| 6 | IM Song Yuxin (4) | 2409 | – | IM Ulviyya Fataliyeva (4) | 2385 | ||
| 7 | IM Dinara Wagner (4) | 2400 | – | GM Tan Zhongyi (3.5) | 2531 | ||
| 8 | IM Carissa Yip (3.5) | 2458 | – | IM Leya Garifullina (3.5) | 2477 | ||
| 9 | GM Alexandra Kosteniuk (3.5) | 2472 | – | GM Harika Dronavalli (3.5) | 2467 | ||
| 10 | GM Irina Krush (3.5) | 2366 | – | WGM Zsoka Gaal (3) | 2388 |
Those games are on Thursday, since the players get one day to rest before the final five rounds.
The 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss and FIDE Women’s Grand Swiss are 11-round Swiss tournaments taking place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on September 4-15. Each will decide two places in the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournaments that select the next world championship challengers. The Open tournament has a $625,000 prize fund, with $90,000 for first place, while the Women’s is $230,000 ($40,000). The time control is classical, with a longer time control for the Open of 100 minutes/40 moves + 50 min/20 + 15 min, with a 30-second increment from move 1.Â
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