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Overview of the events of 2025 in chess
Major chess events in 2025 include the annual Tata Steel Chess Tournament , Norway Chess and Grand Chess Tour . Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun defended her title against challenger Tan Zhongyi in the Women's World Chess Championship . Anish Giri won the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament and, alongside runner-up Matthias Blübaum , qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2026 . The Chess World Cup in November determined the three qualifiers. The event was won by Javokhir Sindarov , who, at age 19, became the youngest player to date to win the event. The 2025 FIDE Circuit , comprising top tournaments in 2025, will determine one qualifier. The annual World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships will take place in December.
Mar 6 – Ian Nepomniachtchi won the Aeroflot Open for the fourth time, ahead of Richárd Rapport and Andrey Esipenko .[ 16]
Mar 7 – Aravindh Chithambaram won the Prague Chess Festival Masters, going undefeated with three wins and six draws. Nodirbek Yakubboev won the Challengers after defeating Jonas Buhl Bjerre 1½-½ in a playoff.[ 17]
Mar 7 – Pranav V and Anna Shukhman became the World Junior Chess Champions .[ 18]
Mar 8 – Daniil Dubov played an exhibition blitz match against Hans Niemann in Moscow , winning 9½-8½.[ 19]
Mar 15 – Vidit Gujrathi won the Freestyle Chess play-in to qualify for the Paris Grand Slam , the second leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour .[ 20]
Mar 23 – Hikaru Nakamura won the American Cup , after beating Fabiano Caruana in the grand final. It was the second time he won the event, after first winning it in 2023. He also won the blitz tournament held the following day.[ 21]
Mar 24 – Anna Muzychuk won the fourth leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2024–25 , edging out Zhu Jiner on tiebreaks.[ 22] [ 23]
Mar 26 – The FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission sanctioned Kirill Shevchenko with a worldwide ban of three years, with one year of the sanction suspended, after finding him guilty of breaching Article 11.7(e) of the Disciplinary Code by attempting to cheat using an electronic device in the Spanish Team Championship.[ 24] [ 25]
Mar 27 – Matthias Blübaum won the European Individual Chess Championship , becoming the first player to win it twice. Frederik Svane and Maxim Rodshtein finished on the same score as Blübaum, but came second and third on tiebreaks, respectively.[ 26]
Oct 3 – Fabiano Caruana won the Grand Chess Tour 2025 after defeating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Grand Finals by 15–13. Levon Aronian finished third after defeating R Praggnanandhaa in the third-place match by 20–8.[ 78]
Oct 4 – FIDE revealed the tournament bracket for Chess World Cup 2025 on their official website.[ 79] [ 80]
Oct 5 – Team USA defeated Team India in the first leg of 'Checkmate - USA vs India' match held in Arlington , Texas, United States.[ 81]
Oct 15 – FIDE announced a new World Championship tournament in chess named 'Total Chess World Championship Tour', organized by Norway Chess . The tournament will determine a World Chess Combined Champion from all three formats - Fast Classical (45+30, introduced in Sep 2025),[ 82] Rapid and Blitz. An one-tournament pilot version will kick off during late 2026, to test the new tour format, with the full official tournament to follow from 2027 onwards. It will also serve as a new qualification pathway for Candidates Tournament in the next cycle.[ 83]
Oct 19 – American grandmaster and commentator Daniel Naroditsky died in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina at the age of 29.[ 84] The Charlotte Chess Center announced his death the following day, without citing a cause. The chess community expressed widespread grief at his sudden demise.[ 85] [ 86]
Oct 22 – FIDE announced an investigation into former world champion Vladimir Kramnik 's campaign of cheating allegations against Daniel Naroditsky.[ 87] FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich stated that all relevant public statements made by Kramnik would be referred to the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission for independent consideration.[ 88]
Oct 29 – Magnus Carlsen won the 'Clutch Chess - Champions Showdown', a rapid chess tournament organised by Saint Louis chess club which also included star players like Hikaru Nakamura , Fabiano Caruana and reigning World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju .[ 89]
FIDE World Championship cycle events are marked in blue.
Rapid & Blitz events[ edit ]
FIDE World Championship cycle events are marked in blue.
5 January — Robert Hübner , four-time World Championship candidate[ 96]
2 February — Peter Enders , German grandmaster[ 97]
27 February — Boris Spassky , 10th World Chess Champion[ 98]
4 April — Friðrik Ólafsson , Icelandic grandmaster and President of FIDE (1978–1982)[ 99]
28 April — Petr Neuman , Czech grandmaster[ 100]
12 May — Vlastimil Hort , Czech-German grandmaster[ 101]
18 June — Tigran Nalbandian , Armenian grandmaster[ 102]
9 September — Jacob Murey , Soviet-born Israeli grandmaster. The Murey variation of the Petrov's Defence is named after him.[ 103]
19 October — Daniel Naroditsky , American grandmaster, author and commentator[ 104]
26 October — Mihai Șubă , Romanian-Spanish grandmaster[ 105]
^ a b c The rapid portion of the tournament is a single round robin, while the blitz portion is a double round robin.
^ Part of the 2025 Esports World Cup tournament series held in Riyadh. This tournament is part of the Champions Chess Tour 2025 , which uses Chess.com and not a standard board.
^ Not a national championship
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