'Something to be happy about': Gukesh after finishing World Rapid Championship Day 1 in joint lead

D Gukesh survived a scare to eke out a draw in his very first match at the World Rapid Championships that began Friday in Doha. After that though, the reigning world champion strung together four straight wins to finish the opening day of the tournament at the top alongside compatriot Arjun Erigaisi, top-ranked Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Russian Vladislav Artemiev.

Canada’s Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux pushed Gukesh to the brink before the Indian Grandmaster held on to get a draw from a losing position. After that Gukesh defeated Sergey Drygalov, Nikita Petrov, Alan Pichot and Sina Movahed to jump to the joint-first spot in the leaderboard.

Gukesh says ‘first game was scary’

Canada’s Rodrigue-Lemieux had the chance to extend Gukesh’s poor form right at the start of the tournament but he could not cash in on a winning endgame and ended up drawing the game. The Indian felt that the opening match was scary but after that he played “pretty good” chess.

“The first game was scary. I was lost totally and then he blundered a trick and after that all the games were pretty good. Four wins in a row is something to be happy about, and also the play, I think, was pretty nice,” Gukesh told ChessBase India at the end of the first day.

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Gukesh did not have the best of 2025 and was coming into the tournament on the back of a turbulent performance at the recent Global Chess League. However, he started the rapid championships on a high note.

Standings | After Day 1 | 2025 FIDE World Rapid & Women’s World Rapid Championship

In the Open Section, there are five co-leaders: 🇳🇴 Magnus Carlsen, 🇮🇳 Arjun Erigaisi, 🇫🇷 Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Vladislav Artemiev, and 🇮🇳 Gukesh D. Meanwhile, 🇨🇳 Zhu Jiner maintains the sole… pic.twitter.com/Fs3YbdxqRu

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) December 26, 2025

Arjun holds on against Carlsen

Carlsen and Arjun both started off with four wins in their first four matches and met in their final encounter of the day. Carlsen continued his dominance and had a two-pawn lead over Arjun in the endgame. However, Arjun showed extreme precision to ensure Carlsen could not find a win with his extra “f” and “h” pawns. The match ended in a draw and both Arjun and Carlsen finished with 4.5 out of 5 on the first day alongside Artemiev, Vachier-Lagrave and Gukesh.

🇳🇴 Magnus Carlsen 0.5–0.5 Arjun Erigaisi 🇮🇳
♟️ Round 5 | FIDE World Rapid Championship 2025

With that, Day 1 comes to an end with five co-leaders: Carlsen, Erigaisi, Vachier-Lagrave, Artemiev, and Gukesh D.#RapidBlitz #Qatar #Doha pic.twitter.com/o8PypoDadX

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) December 26, 2025

15 other players including Indian International Master Goutham Krishna H were in the second spot with 4/5. Meanwhile, Indian star R Praggnanandhaa had a terrible start as he could only get 3/5 points on the first day after a loss in the final game to Levan Pantsulaia, who is rated 150 points lower than him.

Among women Zhu Jiner ended the first day with the sole lead and a perfect 4/4 record. As many as seven players are trailing Zhu by half a point including India’s D Harika. Defending Women’s Rapid Champion Humpy Koneru also sits on 3 points, with two wins and two draws.