Five Americans Remain in World Cup After Two Rounds

After six days, two weeks, and countless upsets at the 2025 FIDE World Cup (read our preview, which describes the format, here), only five Americans (out of 12) have made it to the final 64 in Goa, India: GMs Levon Aronian (seeded 15th), Awonder Liang (21st), Samuel Sevian (23rd), Sam Shankland (46th), and Jeffery Xiong (52nd).

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Aronian analyzes a wild game in the broadcast studio. (Photo courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza)

Aronian — who enters Round 3 as the top-rated American left standing — defeated Indian IM Aronyak Ghosh 1½–½ after some dazzling attacking chess in their first classical game.

Liang took down former Dutch champion GM Max Warmerdam 2–0 in a clash that demonstrated how Liang really took his game to the next level en route to joining the 2700 club. In their first game, included below, Liang uncorked a mating attack just when Warmerdam looked to have survived the worst of his Exchange-down position. But, in their return game, Liang won rather smoothly with the black pieces.

After a pair of classical draws against Singapore’s GM Tin Jingyao, Sevian won both rapid tiebreaks to claim the match 3–1. In the first rapid game, Sevian had to play the majority of his moves with under a minute on his clock, relying mostly on the ten-second increment:

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Sam Shankland poses for photographs after one of his two wins against Ivanchuk. (Photo courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza)

Despite entering as the rating favorite, Shankland’s 2–0 victory over legendary Ukrainian GM Vasyl Ivanchuk — who has been rated as high as second in the world — was one of the more impressive results of any player so far in the tournament. Shankland’s understanding of the position netted him the win in the first game, but his endgame technique in the return game was also a thing of beauty.

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Xiong against his 13-year-old opponent in Round 1. (Photo courtesy FIDE/Michal Walusza)

Xiong is the only American remaining who had to play in Round 1, as the top 50 seeds all had byes. There, he defeated 13-year-old Chinese CM Yiiheng Li 1½–½, but the win didn’t come easy:

In round 2, Xiong dispatched Spanish GM Daniil Yuffa 2–0, even managing to win with a rook against two minor pieces in the second game:

In our preview, I mentioned some “bracket math” to predict pairings based on seed numbers if there were no upsets. Well, entering Round 3, only 45 of the 64 top seeds have made it, accounting for an upset rate of almost 30%! This included three of the top 16 seeds, two of whom were Americans: GMs Wesley So (fifth), Hans Niemann (10th), and Ian Nepomniachtchi (12th).

So’s 1½–½ loss to former University of Texas at Dallas student and reigning Lithuanian Champion GM Titas Stremavicius couldn’t be more heartbreaking for fans of the highest-rated American in this year’s field. As White in the first game, So was pushing with an extra pawn in the longest game of the day, but was unable to come up with the winning plan:

The return game got off to a fantastic start for Stremavicius, who caught So making an uncharacteristic blunder early on, leading to a piece sacrifice. After a trade of queens, So had chances to draw before blundering into a losing position. But one practically imperceptible error of a pawn push from the Lithuanian shot the “eval bar” right back up to equality and, only a few moves later… So resigned in a drawn position:

The reason the position was drawn was far from obvious, and the consensus from top players was more shock that the position was drawn than it was shock that So resigned.

After two draws against Italian GM Lorenzo Lodici, Niemann was the heavy favorite in the faster time controls of the tiebreaks. Yet, in the first rapid game, it was Lodici who had Niemann on the ropes most of the game, and he managed to land the final blow after one final mistake from the American:

The remaining Americans who lost in Round 2 were GMs Ray Robson, Grigoriy Oparin, Abhimanyu Mishra, and Andy Woodward. Robson, Mishra, and Woodward each lost in the classical portion of their respective matches, while Oparin got into trouble in the tiebreaks.

Of this group, only Woodward had to play in Round 1. While his return game in the match against Indian IM Himal Gusain went smoothly, the first game featured an unusual piece sac for lasting activity and could have gone either way early on:

The final American slated to play in Round 1 was GM Kirk Ghazarian, but he did not arrive in time for either of his two classical games.

Round 3 begins Friday, Nov. 7 at 3:30 a.m. CST. Liang faces German GM Rasmus Svane, who upset Azeri GM Rauf Mamedov in the only match to go to Sudden Death on Thursday. Xiong will face Webster University’s Head Coach, GM Le Quang Liem. Shankland will have a tough pairing against Indian GM Vidit Gujrathi, who defeated 12-year-old Argentinian phenomenon IM Faustino Oro in a well-fought match. Sevian will face Russian GM Evgeniy Najer, and Aronian will face GM Salem Saleh (who just defeated Mishra).

After the tiebreaks conclude on Sunday, there will be a rest day on Monday, Nov. 10, with Round 4 resuming at the same time on Tuesday.