Cuban Miranda loses first match of the World Chess Cup

Cuban Yerisbel Miranda lost on Sunday to Uzbekistan's Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova and will need to strike back this Monday to stay in the Women's Chess World Cup 2025 in Batumi, Georgia.

The current Cuban queen lost 56 moves of a Catalan opening—arrived at by transposition from an Indian system—with the black pieces and will have to prevail Monday with the white pieces to force a tiebreak.

Monday, with the color of the pieces swapped, they will face each other again at the Grand Bellagio Batumi Convention & Casino Hotel. Hopefully, a victory for the Cuban will extend the match to the tiebreaks scheduled for Tuesday.

Most of the favorites prevailed in this first match, with some exceptions, such as Russia's Valentina Gunina, who couldn't get past a draw against New Zealand's Isabelle Yixuan Ning, despite a difference of over 400 Elo points.

Lala Shohradova of Turkmenistan also faced India's Agrawal Vantika, and the draw wasn't expected by the fans.

The other Latin American players in attendance didn't have much luck, and several lost their first matches.

The exceptions were Argentina's Anapaola Borda and Candela Belen Francisco, who secured wins and draws against Canada's Jade Ouellet and China's Muziyan Gao, respectively.

107 players from 46 countries are participating in the Georgian city, and the matches are played by KO. The 21 with the highest Elo ratings advance directly to the second round and will join the 43 winners of the matches that began on Sunday.