Fedoseev Leads Firouzja, Pragg As 2025 Grand Chess Tour Begins In Warsaw
Wildcard GM Vladimir Fedoseev is the sole leader of the 2025 Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland, the first event on the 2025 Grand Chess Tour, after scoring 5/6 on day one. It could have been 6/6, but GM Alireza Firouzja escaped in the first round of the day and is tied for second place alongside GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, who scored two wild wins but also suffered a loss to time-trouble addict GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac.
Day two starts Sunday, April 27, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.
- Standings
- Fedoseev Surprise Leader After Day 1
- Firouzja, Praggnanandhaa Take Rollercoasters To 2nd Place
- Topalov Shows Glimpses Of Class
There were just five draws in 15 games as the Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland began in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland Standings After Day 1
This year's Grand Chess Tour is the anniversary 10th edition of a series that first began in 2015 when GM Magnus Carlsen was the winner after three classical events: Norway Chess, the Sinquefield Cup, and the London Chess Classic.
Many changes have followed, but by now the rapid and blitz format we see in Warsaw, and later this year in Zagreb and St. Louis, is very familiar to chess fans, with three days of rapid chess (25+10) followed by two days of blitz (5+2).
This year's lineup in Poland is notable for missing Carlsen, the winner in 2023 and 2024 (with a 10-game winning streak!), who this year will play his first games as a Tour wildcard in Croatia in July.
GM Kirill Shevchenko, who scored 6/6 on day one in 2024, is now temporarily banned from chess after admitting to the use of a phone during games. The Romanian sponsors have instead invited Romanian number-one Deac and national champion GM David Gavrilescu.
There's $175,000 at stake, with $40,000 for first place, and the competition is set to be fierce. The appearance of Firouzja in Warsaw is one of the highlights this year, with the Iranian-born Frenchman the defending Tour champion and a player looking to become the first player ever to win the Tour three times—Carlsen and GM Wesley So have also won twice.
One player who will challenge him is local hero GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who won in 2022, finished second in 2023, and then third in 2024. He celebrated his 27th birthday on day one of the event.
Praggnanandhaa, who was fourth in 2024, will be hoping to make the podium this time, while his competition includes his Indian compatriot GM Aravindh Chithambaram.
As the current world number-11, the late-developer has been given the chance to take on some of the world's best players almost for the first time. 50-year-old former world number-one GM Veselin Topalov, meanwhile, is making a rare return to top-level chess.
Fedoseev Surprise Leader After Day 1
"It feels extremely good to lead such a tournament after day one!" said Fedoseev, whose fantastic year continues. The Russian-born grandmaster, who now represents Slovenia, finished fourth at the Tata Steel Chess Masters and won the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In. Now he's taken the early lead in Warsaw with two wins and a draw.
It could have been better because when Firouzja blundered badly in the first round of the day, it seemed only a matter of time until Fedoseev would go on to win.
Alireza Firouzja is the defending #GrandChessTour Champion and the favorite to win in Warsaw, but 18...c4? just drops a pawn to 19.Nxc4! — "a very strange blunder for a player as tactically aware as Alireza is" (Svidler)https://t.co/0tBOBTe9cQ pic.twitter.com/DjoFfdUoJL
— chess24 (@chess24com) April 26, 2025
Firouzja confessed, "I just counted myself as lost; I was thinking about the next game," but he found a way to keep playing and somehow escape. Fedoseev wasn't too downhearted, since he felt his opponent had displayed "one of the best defenses I ever saw in my life."
That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.
Fedoseev shrugged that off to beat Gavrilescu in 18 moves in round two, after 12...Bb4? instead of 12...Be7! ran into turbulence.
Fedoseev credited his openings as the main reason for his success, and he went on to get an early advantage against Duda which he ultimately converted in a rook endgame. "What could I do—it’s my job!" said Fedoseev of beating someone on their birthday, while adding that it's easier to beat Duda than to make a draw against him, adding: "It’s win or lose against him—he’s the 'Polish fighter' for a reason!"
Firouzja, Praggnanandhaa Take Rollercoasters To 2nd Place
"All three games today were insane," said Firouzja, who wasn't thrilled with his level of play:
It was a very bad day for me. The level of play was really not good. It’s the first day I’ve played for two-three months, so I think it’s a decent result, but if I continue playing like this, it will not be so great, I think!
In round two, Deac was down to just over a minute on the clock by move 10, with Firouzja on 19 minutes. The world number-10 had no illusions that it would be easy, however, saying of his opponent: "He has a crazy style—he goes down to one minute, then he stands up, walks around, and he’s an amazing player!"
Deac turned the tables and was on top, but 30...f5?, played with a second to spare, lost on the spot. Firouzja said he needs to do some puzzles and tactics to get sharper, but he was sharp enough to pounce:
31.Rhxe3! dxe3 32.Rxe3 and the pinned knight on e5 couldn't be defended. The rest was easy for Firouzja, which can't be said of his final game of the day, when he scraped a draw against Gavrilescu.
Praggnanandhaa, meanwhile, was the leader on 4/4 after round two, but only after a very bumpy ride. In round one he took advantage of an out-of-form GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave who lost his way in a tactical struggle, while in round two he missed a knockout blow early on against Aravindh (18.Na4!), then slipped into a dead lost position, next escaped and even won after Aravindh tragically "corrected" the move 50...Ra6! to 50...Rb6? at the last moment.
Deac's terrifying time management would succeed in the final round, however, to prevent Praggnanandhaa from posting a perfect result for the day. Deac got down to six seconds before making his 13th move, while Praggnanandhaa had 22 minutes...
...but in the end, the Indian star would actually lose on time when an all-or-nothing kingside attack had brought Praggnanandhaa nothing.
Topalov Shows Glimpses Of Class
One of the most interesting players to watch was 50-year-old Topalov, who said he'd joked with GM Levon Aronian, "The reason I’m invited is so that he can feel young!" It was understandable that the Bulgarian former number-one was rusty, and he noted, "Since I’m almost inactive, it feels a bit strange to be over the board."
It was visible in the first two games, where he went for some doomed tactical operations against Gavrilescu and then lost an endgame against Duda that there was no need to lose. Perhaps that was punishment for the opening 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Be2!?, though that wasn't the opening move that raised most eyebrows.
#Freestyle pic.twitter.com/b5YoAeoBSX
— Peter Heine Nielsen (@PHChess) April 26, 2025
In the final game of the day, however, Topalov got to strike against Vachier-Lagrave with 29...Nxf5!. When the French star failed to take the piece, there was no stopping Topalov, even if he admitted that he was trying to avoid calculating any long variations for the rest of the game.
Topalov noted, "When you miss very simple moves, it's annoying." He says he now understands how GM Garry Kasparov feels when playing in such events. He reflected on age and chess:
I remember when I was 20 and I was playing guys like Yusupov and Korchnoi and Vaganian, and all these guys, who back then were top 10, and at some point I started beating them, but it felt like, "This guy, is he so strong really?" But, of course, then I realized after some time that it’s coming for me! The same thing would happen to me.
The event has only just begun, with four days and 24 rounds for each of the players to improve their standings.
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Yasser Seirawan, IM Nazi Paikidze, GM Peter Svidler, GM Maurice Ashley, and WGM Anastasiya Karlovich.
The 2025 Superbet Rapid & Blitz Poland is the first event on the 2025 Grand Chess Tour and runs April 26-30 in the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. The 10 players first compete in a single rapid round-robin with a time control of 25 minutes plus a 10-second increment per move, followed by a blitz double round-robin with a 5+2 time control.
Previous coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
