Chance for Gukesh to end season on high

World champion D Gukesh will get the opportunity to end the season on a high following an underwhelming season, while Koneru Humpy will aim to defend her title when the star-studded FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships get underway here on Thursday. The season-ending gala is one that attracts the cream of chess and the upcoming edition will see the likes of five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, Americans Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So, Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi and India’s R Praggnanandhaa, Arjun Erigaisi and Nihal Sarin, among others, make a bid for the top purse in the Open section.

D Gukesh, who won the world title after defeating Ding Liren in 2023, has been overshadowed this year. The champion began 2025 with a loss to compatriot R Praggnanandhaa at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, whose rise has earned widespread respect across the chess world, including from world number 1 Magnus Carlsen. With the World Championships scheduled next year, this is the opportunity for Gukesh to get his confidence back, and what better way than to beat the likes of Carlsen, So and Nepomniachtchi, to name a few.

Erigaisi too has shown that he is among the frontrunners to counter the supremacy of Norway’s Carlsen and Caruana, and the 22-year-old Indian would be highly motivated after missing the opportunity to secure a Candidates berth at the FIDE World Cup in Goa recently. India’s growing clout in chess is evident from the draw as a record 29 players in rapid and blitz (Open) and another 13 players in the Women’s section, led by two-time world rapid champion and Women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh, are in the fray.

As far as the seeding go in the Open section, Carlsen, a huge proponent of casual attire in the sport, arrives in Doha as the top seed in both Open Rapid and Open Blitz (2881) sections. The five-time world rapid and eight-time world blitz champion has been the undisputed king of the chess world, and the fan-following he commands even forced the international chess federation (FIDE) to change its ‘no-jeans’ rule this year after the fiasco at the Worlds in New York where the Norwegian was first disqualified from the rapid event but later allowed to compete in blitz in 2024.

The punishing schedule will see the Rapid event being played across 13 rounds in the Open category and 11 rounds in the women’s section with a time control of 15 minutes and a 10-second increment per move. The Blitz event will be divided into the Swiss Tournament (19 round in Open and 15 in women), where the top-four players will advance to the 4-game knock-out matches. With a hefty top-prize purse of 70,000 Euros for both Rapid and Blitz (Open) and 40,000 Euros in Women’s section, the 400-player field in the tournament has everything to play for.