Grandmaster Nihal Sarin is often considered a master of shorter time controls, but he is now demonstrating his abilities in classical chess by leading the FIDE Grand Swiss 2025 tournament in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. After beating the sole leader after round 6, Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo, Nihal is in the joint lead with 5.5 points from seven rounds alongside Germany’s Matthias Bluebaum.
Nihal has won four rounds, and his win over Maghsoodloo was special as he outplayed Iran’s No. 1 in an extremely complex endgame.
The 21-year-old is also close to qualifying for the prestigious Candidates Tournament. The winner of that 8-player event will earn the right to challenge the current World Champion, 18-year-old Indian D. Gukesh. When asked about this potential scenario, Nihal said he never dreamt of qualifying for the Candidates and that should he seal his spot, it would be a massive bonus for him.
“I never dreamt of that, but okay. I mean, still a lot of games to go and I just hope to play good chess and that’s all I can do. And if I somehow manage to win, it’s just a massive bonus,” Nihal said after winning the seventh round.
He also had some insightful observations on how the game proceeded against Maghsoodloo, where the Iranian fought till the very end before losing the battle.
‘Slav Exchange has dodgy reputation’
“It was a crazy game. I don’t think it was expected from the opening because Slav Exchange generally has a very dodgy reputation, but I just tried to play something interesting,” he said.
“Of course, Parham will never back out of a fight and it was a very interesting game. It became quite crazy and in a lot of moments I thought I was in some trouble and towards the end, I thought he was in some trouble. In the very end with no time — as you said — everything was flying and nobody knew what was happening and in these scrambles, you need quite a bit of luck and fortunately, it was on my side today because towards the end… towards move 40, I ended up with a completely winning position I don’t know how,” added Nihal before revealing how he spent the rest day doing nothing.
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