Round eight saw just one victory among the top boards – with Keymer defeating the 2023 Grand Swiss winner Vidit. A different story unfolded in the women’s tournament where Vaishali Rameshbabu was knocked out of the lead after losing to Bibisara Assaubayeva. On board two, Kateryna Lagno crashed Mariya Muzychuk, taking a half-point lead in the tournament.
Among the top ten boards in the Open section, eight finished in a draw. While many were mostly calm, some saw a sharp fight.
On board one, the two tournament leaders from round seven – Matthias Bluebaum and Nihal Sarin – had a peaceful draw in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, in just 21 moves and under an hour and 20 minutes of play.
Of the seven players trailing the leaders on five points – all but one drew. Firouzja split a point with Niemann in the Ruy Lopez on board two, while Abdusattorov drew as Black against Mishra.
Despite finishing in a draw, the game between Parham Maghsoodloo and Anish Giri saw a lot of intense action on the board. This was the position reached by move 21, in the English Opening:
Black had just placed his bishop on d5, effectively taking the white rook on d6 captive. After 22.Bh3 Rc7 24.cxd5 Ke7 25.dxe6 Kxe6 Black emerged an exchange up, but it’s not so easy to convert, as White’s bishop had a lot of open space and his rook is also very active.
After some precise maneuvers, the two eventually reached the following position:
49.Rg8! The only move! If 49…Rxg8 then 50.Bd5+ followed by the queen promotion after hxg8.
49…Rf8 50.Bg6+ Ke7 51.Kd5 Rf6 And now everything simplifies into a clean draw: 52.h8=Q Rxh8 53.Rxh8 Rxg6 54.Rh7+ Kd8 55.Rxb7.
The only winner among the top boards was Vincent Keymer, who defeated Vidit in the Berlin Defence of Ruy Lopez. Vidit – who is defending his 2023 Grand Swiss crown – blundered his position in one move, in a drawn pawn endgame.
Black should have played 43…Kd5! With the idea of creating a sufficient counterplay on the queenside in case of 44.Kf3 Kd4 45.Kg4 Kc3.
Instead, Vidit faltered with 43…c6? after which Black’s position is beyond repair.
After 44.c4! Kf5 45.Kf3 Kf6 46.Ke4 Ke6 47.d4! White went on to clear the queenside for his a-runner and won.
This victory pushed Keymer into the group of eight players trailing Sarin and Bluebaum by half a point. Another joiner is Jorden van Foreest, who defeated Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
Turkish youngster Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus continued with his impressive performance, this time beating the seasoned Levon Aronian in the French.
White is already better here thanks to his strong knight on g6. Despite being in time trouble, Erdogmus played a great move here – 33.Re4! attacking the d4-pawn. Black cannot take the rook with the knight because of checkmate 34.Rc8+ Rf8 35.Rxf8+ Kh7 36.Rh8#.
Aronian played 33…e5 and after 34.Rxe5 White is winning. The d4-pawn fell pretty soon afterwards and White was confident in securing his victory. Erdogmus is now on 5/8, while Aronian is on four points.
World Champion Gukesh D managed to end his losing streak by securing a draw as White. Playing on the penultimate board against Divya Deshmukh (who this summer won the Women’s World Cup), Gukesh was not his best self, as he missed chances and struggled.
The Women’s event
A big shift occurred in the Women’s Grand Swiss, as Bibisara Assaubayeva handed Vaishali Rameshbabu her first loss in the tournament.
The position was even until move 25, when Vaishali lost her way.
25…Rad8? Overlooking the e5-pawn. Instead, 25…Nd5! would have maintained equality.
26.Nxe5 If 26…Rxd3 27.Rxc6 bxc6 28.Nxd3 and White would have been two pawns up.
Vaishali struggled to find the right plan and spent the following moves shuffling pieces on the board, eventually trapping the knight and queen in a pin.
Black is completely paralyzed and cannot effectively prevent the deadly 35.e4.
Vaishali tried with 34…Rd6 but after 35.e4 Qd7 36.Qd2 Nf4+ 37.Qxf4 Rxd4 38.Rc7 Rexe4 39.Rxd7 and Black is a piece down.
Assaubayeva is now on 6/8, together with Vaishali and Yuxing Song who also won today.
While Vaishali faltered, the runner-up from round seven, Kateryna Lagno, used her chance to score and emerge as the tournament leader.
Lagno defeated the former Women’s World Champion Mariya Muzychuk in the Anti-Meran. Playing as White, Lagno steadily coordinated her pieces and maintained initiative thanks to a strong centralised knight.
On move 21 Mariya Muzychuk weakened the e-pawn with f7-f6 but went for this position, hoping for 23…Bc4, covering it. However, she missed a brilliant refutation by Lagno: 24.d5!!
Black can capture the pawn in four different ways, but neither of them work, and White is already winning.
24…Bxd5 25.Rxd5!! exd5 26.Ne7+ Kh8 27.Qe6! Now the queen joins the mating attack.
27…Qd7 28.Qf7 Rb7 29.Ng6+ Kh7 30.Rd7 Black has to give up the queen to avoid checkmate.
31.Qxd7 Nxd7 and Muzychuk resigned.
A great achievement by Lagno, who said after the game that she is not thinking about the results and standings, but just wants to “play chess the best I can”.
Today was a great day for Yuxin Song as she got a lucky break as Black against the former Women’s World Champion, Antoaneta Stefanova. In a drawn rook endgame, Stefanova made a blunder and gave her position away. This victory got Yuxin Song to 6/8 and a shared second place with Bibisara Assaubayeva and Vaishali Rameshbabu.
The full results of Round 8 and pairings for Round 9 can be found here:
Women: grandswiss2025.fide.com/grand-swiss-women/
Open: grandswiss2025.fide.com/open/
Round 9 will take place on Saturday, 13th September at 3 PM local time.
Written by Milan Dinic
Photos: Michal Walusza
About the event
The FIDE Grand Swiss is one of the most significant tournaments in the World Chess Championship cycle, featuring many of the world’s strongest chess players. Launched in 2019 (with the women’s event starting in 2021), the 11-round Swiss system tournament is held every two years. Considered as one of the most difficult and unpredictable chess events given its open nature, the top two finishers in both categories qualify directly for the World Candidates tournament where a challenger for the title of world champion is chosen.
The 2025 edition runs from 4th to 15th September at the EXPO Centre in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. There are 116 players taking part in the Open and 56 players in the Women’s competition. The total prize fund for the event is $855,000 – $625,000 for the Open and $230,000 for the Women’s event.
All the rounds will be broadcast live on FIDE’s official YouTube channel.
For more information, visit the event website: grandswiss2025.fide.com/