Nihal Sarin holds joint lead, Gukesh held by Divya Deshmukh in FIDE Grand Swiss Round 8

Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin continued his strong run at the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. He registered a quick draw against Germany’s Matthias Bluebaum to share the lead at six points after round eight on Friday, September 12.

Playing with black pieces, Nihal chose the Queen’s Gambit Accepted (QGA) and faced little resistance from Bluebaum as the game ended in just 21 moves. The German GM did little to take advantage of the white pieces and ended up sharing the points with Nihal.

Divya, Gukesh play out intense draw

Meanwhile, the reigning Women’s Chess World Cup champion Divya Deshmukh held the current World Champion D Gukesh to a marathon draw that lasted six hours and 103 moves. Despite a 289-point rating gap between the two, Divya played brilliantly and earned a hard-fought draw.

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🇮🇳 What a battle! 🔥

After 103 moves, Divya Deshmukh held the World Champion Gukesh D to a draw in a rook-and-knight vs rook endgame.

🇮🇳 Gukesh D ½ - ½ Divya Deshmukh 🇮🇳 | Round 8 of the #FIDEGrandSwiss pic.twitter.com/cXVlrbWb0J

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) September 12, 2025

Other Indian results in round eight saw R Praggnanandhaa drawing with Hungarian GM Richard Rapport, Arjun Erigaisi drawing with Armenian GM Shant Sargsyan, V Pranav drawing with Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi, and P Harikrishna losing to Spanish GM Anton Guijarro David.

On the day when R Vaishali lost her sole lead after losing to Bibisara Assaubayeva of Kazakhstan in the women’s section, the other defending champion Vidit Gujrathi also met his nemesis in Vincent Keymer of Germany. Gujrathi blundered his position in one move and provided the only result among the top boards in Open section.

Kateryna Lagno of Russia made most of her white pieces and defeated Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine. Lagno took her tally to 6.5 points out of a possible eight and is now a half point ahead of Assaubayeva, Vaishali and Yuxin Song of China who all have six points apiece. Vaishali was outdone in the endgame by Assaubayeva.

The Kazakh came up with an inspired performance in nearly a must-win game for her and Vaishali fumbled when she left a pawn hanging. Assaubayeva pocketed the pawn and then her technique was good enough to take the point home.

In the next round now, Vaishali will take on Yuxin Song in what could be the decider for her in terms of staying the course for an encore. Nihal, on the other hand, will face Alireza Firouzja in round nine Praggnanandhaa will play Awonder Liang, and Erigaisi will meet Samuel Sevian.

(With agency inputs)