British Chess Magazine November 2025

The game's traditional boundaries are being redrawn – and FIDE, the world’s governing chess body, has given its blessing. In what may prove to be the most significant structural innovation in competitive chess since the introduction of rapid and blitz time controls, Norway Chess has secured FIDE approval for an audacious new concept: the Total Chess World Championship Tour. This isn’t merely another tournament added to an already crowded calendar. It’s a fundamental reimagining of what it means to be a complete chess player in the modern era. The premise is elegantly disruptive. Rather than crowning separate champions in classical, rapid, and blitz chess, the new championship will identify one supreme talent who can master all three disciplines. Beginning with a pilot event in fall 2026 and launching fully in…

In an online interview with Sagar Shah of ChessBase India, one of the leading chess media outlets, Arkady Dvorkovich highlighted the importance and the role of the new Total Chess World Championship Tour which was recently announced by FIDE. “FIDE has for a long time been thinking about a new format where we can combine different time controls and adjust to the reality of the faster, digital world, but also reflect the existing high interest in classical and blitz chess. We were happy that Norway Chess came up with the initiative to do something like that. It was the right time, the right moment and the right partners. From the very beginning, we had a clear understanding that we can do it only together,” Dvorkovich said. “We do believe this…

Checkmate – it’s one of the first words we learn when learning to play chess. It is the goal of the game and the end of the game. “Checkmate: USA vs India is a chess showdown between two of the strongest nations in the world” is how the organisers (Checkmate Strategic Ventures) of this unique event advertised the series of exhibition matches between the players of these countries. Foreseen as a showdown in two parts, the first one took place at the Esports Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on 4th October, with the return leg taking place in India at a later date. Five players from each nation compete in a series of individual matches. Both nations fielded strong players, but the categories were peculiar: the top two players of the…

The 10-year-old British sensation speaks about her chess path, love for Capablanca, and why she doesn't worry about who's sitting across from her. It was Sunday afternoon at the European Club Cup in Rhodes when Bodhana Sivanandan did it again. The 10-year-old from Harrow – carrying a booster seat – caused another sensation, defeating the former Women’s World Champion Mariya Muzychuk of Ukraine (rated 2485, a full 280 points more than Bodhana). The news was widely reported in the chess world, something which has not really been the case for British players in recent years. "She seems to be beating a GM every week now!" Grandmaster Danny Gormally remarked afterwards. For Bodhana herself, the reaction was characteristically measured. For a 10-year-old, she is incredibly calm, composed and confident. When BCM…

The 2025 European Senior Chess Championship took place in the coastal resort of Rabac, Croatia, from 27 September to 5 October, bringing together more than 160 players from 30 European federations. Organised by the European Chess Union and the Croatian Chess Federation, the event featured four sections: Open 50+, Open 65+, Women 50+, and Women 65+, each played over nine rounds (seven in the Women 65+ category) with a classical time control. This year’s champions included GM Jean-Marc Degraeve of France in the Open 50+ section and Georgia’s GM Zurab Sturua, who edged out GM John Nunn on tiebreaks to claim the Open 65+ title. Among the women, WIM Gundula Heinatz of Switzerland triumphed in the 50+ category after a tense final round, while Romania’s WIM Ligia-Letitia Jicman topped the…

Chess entered his life at the age of six, when his older brother, Alan, brought several board games to entertain children at a party. Their father, Vladimir, an immigrant from Ukraine, taught the boys chess. “I think a lot of people want to imagine that it was love at first sight and that my brother couldn’t pull me away from the chessboard… It was more of a gradual process, where chess slowly entered the battery of stuff we did to pass the time. A lot of my best memories are just doing stuff with my brother,” he told the New York Times in 2022, in an article announcing that he will be writing a chess column for the paper. In fact, apart from chess, basketball was one of Naroditsky’s favourite…