The Week in Chess

1. 25th European Teams 2025 - Games and Results

   The 25th European Team championships took place in Batumi, Georgia 5th to 14th October 2025. Leading players such as Anish Giri, Vincent Keymer, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Richard Rapport competed, the field had 56 players over 2600. In the women's event the leading players were Nana Dzagnidze, Nino Batsiashvili, Alexandra Kosteniuk etc.

   Ukraine won the event by beating England 2.5-1.5 in the final round. Azerbaijan finished second in spite of losing to Serbia in the last round whose win earned them a third place finish. In the women's event Poland beat Azerbaijan in the final round to take first place, Ukraine drew with Armenia to take second place and Germany finished third in spite of losing to Bulgaria in the final round.

2. 78th Russian Chess Championships 2025 - Games and Results

   The 78th Russian Chess Championship and 75th Russian Women's Championship took place in Moscow 1st to 12th October 2025. The event was pretty weak compared to even the relatively recent past due to the war. Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Artemiev, Andrey Esipenko and Vladimir Malakhov were the top seeds but there were some young players too. Polina Shuvalova, Leya Garifullina, Olga Girya, Valentina Gunina and Alisa Galliamova were the leading women's players. 22 year old Arseniy Nesterov won the title for the first time with 6.5/11 half a point clear of Daniil Dubov, Andrey Esipenko and Vadim Zvjaginsev. Anna Shukhman won the women's event with 7/10 half a point clear of Leya Garifullina (who she beat in the final round in the first game to finish) and Daria Charochkina. Alisa Galliamova had to withdrew due to health reasons at around the half way stage and her results were annulled.

3. US Chess Championships 2025 - Games and Results

   The US Chess Championships take place in Saint Louis Sun 12th Oct to Sat 25th Oct 2025.

   Players: Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, Hans Moke Niemann, Levon Aronian, Awonder Liang, Samuel Sevian, Ray Robson, Grigoriy Oparin, Sam Shankland, Abhimanyu Mishra, Andy Woodward and Dariusz Swiercz.

   Women: Carissa Yip, Alice Lee, Tatev Abrahamyan, Irina Krush, Anna Sargsyan, Rose Atwell, Thalia Cervantes Landeiro, Anna Zatonskih, Nazi Paikidze, Atousa Pourkashiyan, Megan Althea Paragua and Jennifer Yu.

4. Chess Highlights this Week : European Teams, Russian Championship, and Anand vs Kasparov -

   The European Team Championships got underway on Sunday. This is still one of the highlights of the chess calendar. If you're looking for high-quality, motivated chess, this is your tournament. Russia is absent due to the war in Ukraine (or, if you prefer, because it now belongs to the Asian Federation), and Norway couldn't afford to send a team, but quality is everywhere. Top-seeded Germany lost to 21st-seeded Denmark. They outrated them on every board, but not by so much that the result was outrageous. After three rounds, Serbia and Greece are the only teams with perfect scores. The Netherlands, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine have each dropped just one point.

   Russia is holding its national championships, October 1st to 12th. Many Western websites refuse to cover this at all. I wouldn’t go that far, but I do try to limit myself to reporting results and games. I only found out it had started after round 6. It's also shockingly weak compared to even a few years ago.

   Finally Viswanathan Anand and Garry Kasparov meet in a 12 game match - Clutch Chess, the legends - held in Saint Louis over three days starting tonight. It’s quite possible this match wouldn’t have happened without the use of the Chess960 variant - Anand is surely much more theoretically knowledgeable than Kasparov these days - but still I would have much preferred standard chess. The mixture of rapid and blitz under a single scoring system is unusual, and the Clutch Chess format - where the value of wins increases from 1 to 2 to 3 points (with draws worth half that value) across the three-day event - is experimental. A 12-game match of regular rapid chess would have elevated the status of this immeasurably.

5. Clutch Chess: The Legends - Games and Results

   Clutch Chess: The Legends was a match between Viswanathan Anand and Gary Kasparov in Saint Louis 8th to 10th October. Kasparov won the match 13-11 but this score rather flatters Anand who won the final two games after the match was already decided.

6. Checkmate: USA vs India 2025 - Games and Results

   The Checkmate: USA vs India match took place in Arlington, Virginia on October 4th. This is the projected first leg of two and the format was that the USA had white in every game as the home side, there will be an Indian leg where the colours will be reversed at some point in the future. There was one 10 minute game, if drawn a 5 minute game, if drawn a 1 minute game until a winner was found. USA won every one of the mini-matches between the teams which was a mix of strengths.

7. Grand Chess Tour Finals 2025 - Games and Results

   The Grand Chess Tour Finals took place in Sao Paulo Sunday 28th to Friday 3rd October. Players: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Praggnanandhaa, Levon Aronian and Fabiano Caruana. This is a knockout where they play a mix of Classical, rapid and blitz. Classical Games: 6 points for a win, 3 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss, Rapid Games: 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss, Blitz Games: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss.

   Fabiano Caruana beat MVL in the final but only after coming from behind winning three blitz games in a row and then surviving a lost position in the fourth. Levon Aronian qualified for next year's tour beating Praggnanandhaa heavily in the 3rd-4th playoff.

8. Legends and Prodigies 2025 - Games and Results

   The Legends and Prodigies tournament took place Wed 17th Sep 2025 to Thu 25th Sep 2025. The event had four young players Diego Macias Pino (born 2007), Lu Miaoyi (2010 who had to withdraw at the half way stage), Ilan Schnaider (2011) and the player of the moment 11 year old Faustino Oro (2013). These were pitted against older players Julio Granda Zuniga, Omar Almeida Quintana, Jose Fernando Cuenca Jimenez, David Larino Nieto, Pedro Ramon Martinez Reyes and Alan Pichot.

   The event was dominated by Oro who conceded just three draws and won all sorts of games. This result reminds me of Carlsen's win and first GM norm in the Wijk aan Zee C tournament at the age of 13 in 2004 when it was no longer possible to ignore his results. I'm a believer in letting juniors develop without overhyping them, although the young chess genius has always fascinated; be it Capablanca, Reshevsky, Pomar, Fischer, Sofia and Judit Polgar, and on into the modern era. Only Gukesh earned a first GM norm younger than Oro.