EWC 2025 Chess First Day Overview

Among the many games featured at the Esports World Cup 2025, such as Dota 2, CS2, or LoL, one exciting discipline often gets overlooked – Chess. This year, chess is part of the EWC lineup and is receiving just as much attention as other games. The EWC 2025 Chess tournament runs from July 29 to August 1 and brings together 16 of the world’s best chess players. In this article, we’ll walk you through the tournament situation after the first day of competition.

EWC 2025 Chess Format and Prize Pool

The chess tournament at EWC 2025 closely resembles other esports disciplines, with a clearly defined format, rules, and bracket system. The tournament format is as follows:

Stage 1

• 4 Groups of 4 players - GSL
• Time control: 10 minutes with no increment
• Armageddon as tiebreaker
• 2 games per match

Stage 2

• Single Elimination Bracket
• Time control: 10 minutes with no increment
• Armageddon as tiebreaker
• Ro8: 4 games per match
• Ro4: 6 games per match

Grand Finals: Best of 3 Sets

• First two sets are 4 games
• If necessary, Final set are 2 games

As you can see, the players must play a large number of matches to win the tournament.

Prize Pool

The prize pool for the Esports World Cup 2025 Chess tournament is quite substantial. Players will compete for a total of $1,500,000 and valuable EWC Club Points, which will boost their teams’ rankings and help them receive invitations to other esports tournaments.

First Day Recap

The first day of the chess tournament at Esports World Cup 2025 turned out to be dynamic and exciting, as expected. It proved that the esports-style format works perfectly for chess, making the game even more engaging for fans. The players were divided into four groups and played matches in the Rapid format with 10-minute time controls and no increment. In the event of a draw, the Armageddon game served as the decider.

In Group A, Levon Aronian from the USA stood out, first defeating Vladislav Artemiev (1.5–0.5) and then crushing Andrey Esipenko in the upper bracket final with a 2–0 score.

In Group B, Arjun Erigaisi from India impressed the most, winning all his matches, including a 2–1 victory in the final against France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

There was no shortage of drama in the other groups either. In Group C, Hikaru Nakamura delivered a strong performance, defeating Sindarov, but lost the drawn Armageddon game against Firouzja. In any case, Nakamura still has a chance to reach the playoffs if he wins in the lower bracket.

In Group D, Magnus Carlsen had no equal. The legendary player defeated both Abdusattorov and Duda, securing a spot in the playoffs. The tournament is just getting started, but it’s already clear that the battle for $1,500,000 and EWC Club Points will be intense.