The Week in Chess

• 11th Vugar Gashimov Memorial 2025 - Games and Results

  The 11th Vugar Gashimov Memorial takes place in Stepanakert Tue 9th Dec to Thu 11th Dec 2025. Two days of rapid and one day of blitz. Players: Nepomniachtchi, Fedoseev, Mamedov, Tabatabaei, Yakubboev and Suleymanli.

• Magistral Szmetan-Giardelli 2025 - Games and Results

  The Magistral Szmetan-Giardelli is a very interesting Round Robin held in Buenos Aire 8th to 16th December 2025. Players: Aryan Tari, Ivan Cheparinov, Julio, Granda Zuniga, Alexei Shirov, Diego Flores, Sandro Mareco, Faustino Oro, Ilan Schnaider, Sergio Slipak and Tomas, Darcyl.

• Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals 2025 - Games and Results

  The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals take place Mon 8th Dec to Thu 11th Dec 2025. The venue is the Grootbos Private Nature Reserve two hours drive from Cape Town. The event is a fast rapid time control of 10 minutes + 5 seconds a move. Players: Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi, Levon Aronian, Hans Niemann, Parham Maghsoodloo and Javokhir Sindarov. I can make the games available for download but can't display them.

• 15th XTX Markets London Chess Classic 2025 - Games and Results

  The 15th XTX Markets London Chess Classic took place Wed 26th Nov to Sun 7th Dec 2025. Players: Alireza Firouzja, Luke Mcshane, Michael Adams, Nikolas Theodorou, Sam Shankland, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Pavel Eljanov, Nikita Vitiugov, Abhimanyu Mishra and Gawain Maroroa Jones.

  Nodirbek Abdusattorov dominated the event scoring 7.5/9 and finished two points clear of Alireza Firouzja. The open saw Praggnanandhaa, Vladimir Ivic and Ameet Ghasi tie on 7/9. The Super Rapid was won by Nikolas Theodorou on 9/10 with Alireza Firouza half a point behind on 8.5 points.

• Nikolas Theodorou wins the London Super Rapid - Rapid

  The 15th XTX Markets London Chess Classic concluded with the Super Rapidplay over the final weekend. All of the players who featured in the Elite tournament also played the rapid and most of them were in the final shakeup.

  Nikolas Theodorou emerged as a clear winner with a fantastic 9/10 score, run to the title was: win against Luke McShane, win against Leinier Dominguez, draw against Alireza Firouzja and then win against Nodirbek Abdusattorov in Round 10.

  Theodorou was born in Athens in 2000 and is 25 years old. He is Greece's top player and is at a career high right now having passed 2650 for the first time. He's been a GM since 2021.

• Abdusattorov's draw with Firouzja confirms victory in the London Chess Classic - 7-8

  Nodirbek Abdusattorov's six game winning streak might have ended with a draw against Alireza Firouzja in Round 8 but it confirmed a clear win for him in the London Chess Classic with a round to spare, and this result was obtained from a position of strength.

  Abdusattorov had beaten Luke McShane in Round 7 with a long grind giving him a two point lead over Firouzja. Their Round 8 game was a Queen's Gambit Accepted where the engine thought Abdusattorov's 15...Rb6 was inferior to 15...Nd8= and that 16.Qe2 instead of 16.Qa4 might have given an edge to Firouzja. As it was Abdusattorov was the one who stood slightly better and when he repeated for a draw Firouzja had no choice whilst Abdusattorov could have played 33...Qg6 to try for a win had he needed.

• Abdusattorov extends his winning streak to 5 games in London - 5-6

  Nodirbek Abdusattorov leads the London Chess Classic with 5.5/6 one and a half points clear of Alireza Firouzja. After a first round draw Abdusattorov has now won five games in a row.

  In round five he defeated Nikolas Theodorou in a battling game. Abdusattorov chose the English after recently favouring 1.e4 and this seemed to sidestep all of his opponent's preparation and produce a nice advantage. Theodorou fought back and after 20 moves was equal again, then on move 26 he decided to give up his Queen for Rook and Knight, this wasn't losing but it made him a bit worse, then the game became very wild with black being objectively lost but finding tricky ideas. After 38.Qe3 the game was equal but 39...Nd3? (39...Re2!=) ruined everything for black and Abdusattorov cleaned up after first time control.

  In round six Abdusattorov again only won after a big fight, this time against Sam Shankland. 27.Rd4? was the losing move with Shankland failing to appreciate that the Rook was unstable on this...