Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: The Subtle Castle
Goa, India hosted the FIDE World Cup 2025 from 1 to 26 November. It was a 206-player field with eight rounds of single-elimination knockout. In each round, players faced in two classical games of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes to finish, and a 30-second increment from move 1. In case of a tie, they next play rapid and blitz games. Compared to the previous edition, time control for tiebreaks sped up. Rapid games used a control 15+10 (previous edition 25+10)
The venue was the Resort Rio in Arpora in the west coast of India. The prize fund was $2 million with winner receiving $120,000 and even first-round losers guaranteed $3,500.
The World Cup is a great chance for less known titled players to face their top colleagues and surprise them with homemade novelties. Because of a mix of formats (classical and rapid time controls) it also offers opportunities to skilled players in rapid and blitz.
It has been the case of José Eduardo Martínez Alcántara, a Peruvian GM and blitz specialist who earned prominence for his success in Titled Tuesday (TT). He showed great performance on TT and won several of them since 2022 ahead of specialists like Nakamura and Carlsen.
Martínez (ELO 2644) played in the FIDE World Cup and was one of the heroes of the event. He reached quarterfinals after beaten GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov (2750), Alexey Sarana (2675), and Pentala Harikrishna (2690). Uzbek GM Javokhir Sindarov eliminated Martínez in quarterfinal, but overall it was a great experience for Martínez who enhanced his reputation, gained 23 ELO points and went home with a prize of $35,000
In round 4, Martínez played Alexey Sarana and took an early lead winning the first classical game. In the second classical, Martínez earned a clear advantage and a completely won position after 13 moves. But Martínez didn’t win. Instead, he decided to seal a draw in move 16 by repetition.
Because Martínez had won the first classical game, it was enough for him a draw in the second for going to next round. That was the practical reason for not willing to win this game.
However, the game featured a curious moment when Martinez tried to claim a draw while making his move 19. Optically, the players repeated three times the same position on the board. But arbiters rejected the claim because of a subtle nuance that is worth explaining. When White played his move 15.Bxf7+, Black still had the right of castling because Sarana didn’t move the king nor the king’s rook. When White plays again 16.Bxf7+, despite the same optical situation, Black had lost the right of castling. Therefore the position is different (not a second repetition!) Only when Sarana played 20.Ke8 the position is technically three times repeated!
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