2025 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship Day 1: Carlsen, Gukesh, Arjun, Vachier-Lagrave, Artemiev Share Lead

GMs Magnus Carlsen, Gukesh Dommaraju, Arjun Erigaisi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Vladislav Artemiev lead the 2025 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship with 4.5 points out of five games on the first day. The group of 15 players that trails them by a half-point includes two international masters, IM Goutham Krishna and IM Eldiar Orozbaev.

GM Zhu Jiner broke into the sole lead of the 2025 FIDE Women’s World Rapid Championship as the only player on a perfect 4/4. She is trailed by no fewer than seven players a half-point behind, with two more days of rapid chess ahead.

Day two of the rapid championships, with rounds six-nine in the Open and five-eight in the Women’s, is on Saturday, December 27, starting at 6 a.m. ET / 12:00 CET / 4:30 p.m. IST.

World Rapid & Blitz Championships Return To Doha, Qatar

The World Rapid And Blitz Championships, which traditionally take place between Christmas and New Year’s, return to Doha, Qatar, for the first time since 2016. GM Vasyl Ivanchuk won the rapid title that year and GM Sergey Karjakin won the blitz. The 56-year-old Ukrainian GM, active as ever, is back at it this year and started with 3/5.

The tournaments, featuring Open and Women’s sections, are held at the Sports and Events Complex in Qatar University from December 26 to 30. Four champions will be crowned—world rapid, world blitz, women’s world rapid, and women’s world blitz—and a prize fund of about €1,000,000 will be awarded. The first three days are devoted to rapid chess, with €70,000 awarded to first place in the Open and €40,000 to first in the Women’s.

The format is largely the same as last year—in fact, the rapid tournaments are exactly the same. The notable changes are that there are 19 rounds of blitz in the Open and 15 in the Women’s (increased from 13 and 11). Also, if the score is tied after four blitz games in the Final, just one armageddon game will determine the world rapid blitz champion—a shift from theoretically infinite blitz tiebreak games, which last year’s regulations allowed.

The world’s top-15 are all participating with the exception of GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Wei Yi, and unsurprisingly GM Viswanathan Anand. Though he isn’t playing, Nakamura is still making video recaps, and you can catch his summary of the day below:

World number-one Carlsen said, in a recent interview, that his relationship with FIDE still isn’t “great,” but he decided to play in Doha after all. The Norwegian GM holds 13 world titles in speed chess; he has received a medal every year at this event since 2014. Last year was a close call, however, as he controversially agreed with GM Ian Nepomniachtchi (who’s on 3.5/5 so far) to split the world blitz title.

Though Carlsen quit the tournament last year after being fined for wearing jeans, this year he will be gunning for the rapid title held by GM Volodar Murzin, who finished the first day with just two points. In all, 247 of the world’s best players participate in the rapid championship. 

World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju is in the mix, though he said at the press conference that classical chess is his priority. He said, “I am here to play, to experiment, to enjoy myself, and simply to play chess with the aim of learning and gaining experience.” Gukesh had a great performance in the rapid portion of SuperUnited Croatia Rapid & Blitz 2025, though Carlsen took over and won the event after the blitz section, and Gukesh finished in third.

GM Ju Wenjun has earned the triple crown in her career, having won the women’s world championship titles in classical, rapid, and blitz. She is the reigning classical world champion and blitz world champion, while GM Koneru Humpy is the reigning rapid world champion. All of the world’s top-10 women participate, with the exception of GM Hou Yifan, who hasn’t been very active as a player for many years.

GM Anna Muzychuk, who won both the women’s rapid and blitz titles in Doha nine years ago, returns to Qatar and is on 3/4, as does her sister, GM Mariya Muzychuk, who’s on 3.5/4. 142 women participate in both events.

Open: Favorites Improve On Last Year

Day one of this year was smoother for the favorites than it was last year. After five rounds in 2024, the highest seed in the four-way tie for first was number-15 GM Leinier Dominguez, and Carlsen was far behind on 2.5/5. 

This year, four of the leaders are seeded in the top-10, and the only one outside that circle is Gukesh, seeded at number-16 with a deceptive rapid rating of 2692.

Open Standings After 5 Rounds | Top 20

See full standings here.

In a major improvement over last year, Carlsen showed the kind of form we have grown accustomed to seeing. He won all four of his first games before making a draw with Arjun, the only other player to start on a perfect 4/4.

Against GM Lorenzo Lodici, who was an unexpected star in the 2025 FIDE World Cup, Carlsen won a pawn in the knight endgame and converted the point, before going on to win the Game of the Day in round two against GM David Paravyan.

A Sicilian Defense led to a curious heavy-piece endgame where both kings were exposed. In a complicated situation, both players found a series of only moves until one mistake allowed Carlsen to land a checkmate on the board. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes what happened in that game below.

Carlsen found a nice zugzwang idea to convert a non-trivial queen vs. rook endgame against GM Eduardo Iturrizaga Bonelli and then scored his fourth win against GM David Anton with a pawn sacrifice.

Gukesh withdrew from the event last year after he had won the world championship match against GM Ding Liren, but he’s off to a terrific start this time. After drawing in round one against GM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux (it was Gukesh who saved a lost position there), the world champion won all four of his next games to finish in the lead.

His most difficult win, which nearly slipped, came against GM Alan Pichot, where he converted with a rook and three pawns against a rook and knight—which ultimately turned into the theoretically drawn f- and h-pawn rook endgame.

Curiously enough, Arjun held the same endgame against Carlsen a round later.

Arjun, who scored 4/5 last year, did a half-point better this time. As far as opening gambits go, his round-two game against GM Bai Jinshi featured an interesting pawn sacrifice, though it ultimately had nothing to do with the result of the game.

Arjun’s flashiest combination was against GM Aram Hakobyan in the round that followed, and 30…Nf3! was the nail in the coffin for that attack. 

Vachier-Lagrave, who scored 3.5/5 by this point last year, is another one of five players in the lead, and in round five he won with 96 percent accuracy against GM Alexander Grischuk. He handled an unusual line in the Najdorf Sicilian in model fashion, and later 23…Be3! was the star tactic to put away the game.

As for his chances of winning the event, Vachier-Lagrave told FIDE, “Recently, I’ve played better in rapid than in blitz, but on a very good day, my blitz is better.”

Artemiev, also on 4.5 points and who didn’t play in New York last year, scored perhaps his most impressive win against GM Amin Tabatabaei in round three. It didn’t feature a flashy combination, but winning an opposite-color bishop endgame with just one extra pawn against a strong GM is no small feat.

There were several upsets across the five rounds, with the most noteworthy listed below. IM Krishna’s (2392) win against GM Teimour Radjabov (2661) was the biggest upset of the day in terms of rating difference.

10 Upsets From Day 1

GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre earns the prize for best opening trap, as it worked against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov in round three. 10…Qd7??, a natural enough move, lost the game on the spot to the beautiful 11.Be6!!. 

Bjerre explained, “I played a tricky opening, so he actually fell into a trap quite early on, so I managed to win surprisingly quickly!”

It’s far too early for celebration with more than half the tournament remaining. There are 13 rounds in total, which will be played across two more days. On Saturday, all the leaders will face each other with the exception of Gukesh, who faces the highest-rated player on four points, GM Anish Giri.

Open Round 6 Pairings | Top 10 Boards

Women’s: Zhu’s On Top

The women’s standings are a lot easier to decipher. There’s one player at the top: Zhu Jiner.

Women’s Standings After 4 Rounds | Top 36

See full standings here. 

Though she’s listed as the 10th seed in the event, Zhu is the world number-two by classical rating—only behind Hou, who rarely plays over the board. Zhu won the 2024-25 Women’s Grand Prix and thus earned a seat in the 2026 FIDE Women’s Candidates Tournament. So, while one can never reliably expect such a thing, it’s not a surprise to see her at the very top of this event.

The Chinese grandmaster offered an explanation for her success lately: “Maybe because I’m just enjoying playing chess and also I graduated from my university [where she studied accounting], so I spend more time on chess.”

She considers herself to be “not so good in rapid” and is just focused on enjoying her time at the event. For someone “not so good,” 4/4 is not bad!

After four rounds last year, there was also one player in the lead, and it was IM Alice Lee, but the American isn’t in the field this time. Zhu, on the other hand, started on 2.5/4 last year in New York. 

On her way to the lead, she defeated two grandmasters, an international master, and a women’s grandmaster. 

Zhu’s best win was against 11th-seed GM Nana Dzagnidze. The Georgian grandmaster had enough activity to hold a draw despite being a pawn down, but Zhu took advantage of White’s awkwardly placed bishop—the threat of …c4 always looming large—to win the game.

Comparatively, the other top-10 seeds have had slower starts, with most of them landing on three points by the end of the day. Only GMs Aleksandra Goryachkina and Harika Dronavalli are on 3.5 points, trailing the leader; on three points are World Champion Ju as well as GMs Tan Zhongyi, Lei Tingjie, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Alexandra Kosteniuk, and Humpy. GM Kateryna Lagno finds herself on 2.5 points after winning just one game and drawing three.

A slow start isn’t the end of the world, of course. Last year, Humpy lost the first game and went on to win the tournament.

Below, you can find 10 notable upsets from day one in the women’s tournament. The largest upset was FM Yining Chen‘s win against IM Eline Roebers—one of two upsets suffered by the Dutch IM, who then won her next two games.

10 Upsets From Day 1

Of course, GM Vaishali Rameshbabu‘s rapid rating of 2359 is misleading, and her win against GM Tan Zhongyi shouldn’t be considered a major upset. It may, however, be the biggest tragedy—and blunder—of the day, as the Chinese grandmaster, who had a winning advantage, allowed a back rank checkmate in one move.

Zhu plays the third seed, Goryachkina, in the first game on Saturday. The tournament is still anybody’s for the taking, with 11 rounds in total.

Women’s Round 5 Pairings | Top 10 Boards

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