Chess digest, Sep. 26–30: Uzbekistan win the Olympiad at home, China's women go unbeaten, FIDE elects Turlov
Uzbekistan win the Chess Olympiad on home soil, China take the women's title two points clear, and FIDE's member federations elect Timur Turlov president in Samarkand.
Coverage window: after 10:45 Sofia time on September 26 through 10:45 on September 30, 2026.
Uzbekistan won the 46th Chess Olympiad on home soil on Sunday, finishing two match points clear of India and Germany. 1 China won the women's event by the same margin, and FIDE's member federations elected Timur Turlov president in Samarkand on Saturday. 23
Open section: the hosts finish it off
Round ten on Saturday left five teams able to win the open event. Uzbekistan beat Armenia 3½–½: Javokhir Sindarov and Mukhiddin Madaminov won quickly after their opponents went wrong in double-edged middlegames, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov needed much longer to convert rooks and opposite-coloured bishops against Haik Martirosyan. 4 Armenia had lost only two individual games in the first nine rounds. 4
India stayed a point behind on 17/20 by beating Uzbekistan 2 by the same 3½–½, with wins from Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, Nihal Sarin and Gukesh Dommaraju. 45 Ukraine beat China 3–1, with Igor Kovalenko beating Ding Liren and 18-year-old Roman Dehtiarov beating Kong Xiangrui. 4 Germany beat France 3–1 behind another pair of wins from the Svane brothers, and Hungary beat Spain 3–1 to stay in the race. 4 The last round began four hours earlier than usual, at 11 a.m. local time in Samarkand, and paired Uzbekistan with Ukraine, India with Hungary and Germany with the Netherlands. 4
Uzbekistan's last match was the closest of the three. Madaminov beat Dehtiarov on board four, and the other three games drew: Abdusattorov with Kovalenko, Sindarov with Ivanchuk and Nodirbek Yakubboev with Ihor Samunenkov, in a game played out to bare kings on move 52. 6 Madaminov is the lowest-rated player in the team and the only one who missed the 2022 title in Chennai; he converted a pawn-up rook endgame, and Chess.com made the game its Game of the Day. 17 The hosts finished on 20 match points with one defeat all tournament, against Germany in round eight, and four of their five players are between 19 and 24 years old. 16 Uzbekistan's government pays $200,000 to each player for an Olympiad gold and $50,000 to the coaches, a figure raised before this event. 7
India's 2–2 draw with Hungary brought the silver medal out of a match the team nearly lost. Gleb Dudin beat Gukesh, and Arjun Erigaisi beat Peter Leko on board three to level the score. 1 Gukesh had come into the round on 8½/10 and in line for a third individual gold in three Olympiads; the defeat dropped him to individual silver on board four, cost him 6.9 rating points on the day and left him 29th in the world, 72 points behind Sindarov, his opponent when the world title match opens in Geneva in November. 167
Germany took bronze on 18 match points, behind India on tiebreak, after beating the Netherlands 2½–1½. Matthias Bluebaum scored the decisive point on board two, where Jorden van Foreest blundered in a drawn position, and the medal is Germany's first in the open section since Istanbul in 2000. 16 Germany was the only team to beat Uzbekistan all event, and it reached the podium with nine match wins and two defeats. 6
Individual medals in the open section:
| Board | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nodirbek Abdusattorov (UZB), 8½/11, 2869 | Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş (TUR), 8/10, 2839 | Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (IND), 2772 |
| 2 | Wei Yi (CHN), 2798 | Jorden van Foreest (NED), 2798 | Javokhir Sindarov (UZB), 2797 |
| 3 | Frederik Svane (GER), 8½/11, 2796 | Nodirbek Yakubboev (UZB), 2774 | Shant Sargsyan (ARM), 8/11, 2745 |
| 4 | Ihor Samunenkov (UKR), 8/10, 2720 | Gukesh Dommaraju (IND), 2718 | Levon Aronian (USA), 6/8, 2699 |
| 5 | Gleb Dudin (HUN), 8/10, 2738 | Daniil Yuffa (ESP), 2691 | Vladimir Hamitevici (MDA), 2617 |
Abdusattorov played all eleven rounds unbeaten for 8½ points and the best performance of the event, 2869. 16 Erdoğmuş, 15, took silver behind him and finished as the highest-rated 15-year-old in chess history, 17th in the live rankings. 16 Wei Yi took board two on the tiebreak of playing more games, with the same 2798 performance rating as Van Foreest, and Samunenkov, 17, took board four from Gukesh on the strength of his final-round draw with Yakubboev. 16
Final open standings:
| # | Team | Match points | Board points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uzbekistan | 20 | 32½ |
| 2 | India | 18 | 28½ |
| 3 | Germany | 18 | 28½ |
| 4 | United States | 17 | 29 |
| 5 | Azerbaijan | 17 | 28½ |
| 6 | Armenia | 17 | 27 |
| 7 | Hungary | 17 | 24½ |
The ranking runs on match points and then on tiebreak, so the board-point column decides nothing on its own: the United States outscored Germany on board points and finished below it. 8 China, France, Spain, Ukraine and England finished a point further back on 16. 8
Women's event: China win with room to spare
Round ten gave the chasing teams one last opening. China drew 2–2 with India, and Kazakhstan beat France 2½–1½ behind a Bibisara Assaubayeva win on board one, which left China on 18/20 and Kazakhstan on 17, with India, Poland and Vietnam on 16 and still able to catch the leaders. 9 Savitha Shri, on India's reserve board, beat Zhai Mo to level that match, and Poland beat Mongolia 3–1 without losing a game. 9
China closed it out by beating Vietnam 3–1, with Zhu Jiner and 16-year-old Lu Miaoyi winning the decisive games and both taking individual gold on their boards. 12 China finished on 20 match points with nine wins, two draws and no defeats, and conceded only two individual games across the eleven rounds, all with four of the world's top five women's players missing from the team. 17
Kazakhstan took silver on 18 after drawing 2–2 with Poland, a match level again by 16-year-old Elnaz Kaliakhmet's win over Alicja Sliwicka; Kaliakhmet took gold on board four. 1 The United States, Poland, Armenia and Mongolia all finished on 17 match points with India, which took bronze on tiebreak after a 2–2 draw with Georgia in which Savitha Shri escaped a lost position against Meri Arabidze. 12 Savitha Shri, 19, was playing her first Olympiad and scored 9/10 for a 2569 performance, the best in the women's event apart from four players, which took her up 23 rating points to 2405 and 41st in the world. 12 Zhu Jiner's 7/9 on board one returned her to second in the women's live ratings, behind the largely inactive Hou Yifan, and Lu Miaoyi scored 9½/11 for a 2576 performance. 27
Individual medals in the women's event:
| Board | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zhu Jiner (CHN), 7/9, 2638 | Carissa Yip (USA), 2601 | Koneru Humpy (IND), 2543 |
| 2 | Alice Lee (USA), 10 games, 2572 | Mariam Mkrtchyan (ARM), 11 games, 2544 | Song Yuxin (CHN), 8/11, 2492 |
| 3 | Lu Miaoyi (CHN), 9½/11, 2576 | Divya Deshmukh (IND), 2464 | Bella Khotenashvili (GEO), 2408 |
| 4 | Elnaz Kaliakhmet (KAZ), 2486 | Ineymig Hernandez Gil (CUB), 2443 | Vantika Agrawal (IND), 6/8, 2437 |
| 5 | Savitha Shri (IND), 9/10, 2569 | Thi Mai Hung Nguyen (VIE), 2395 | Vesna Mihelic (SLO), Sofia Pogorelskikh (SRB), Guldona Karimova (UZB), all 2311 |
Final women's standings:
| # | Team | Match points | Board points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 20 | 33 |
| 2 | Kazakhstan | 18 | 29 |
| 3 | India | 17 | 31 |
| 4 | United States | 17 | 32½ |
| 5 | Poland | 17 | 28½ |
| 6 | Armenia | 17 | 28½ |
| 7 | Mongolia | 17 | 27 |
The same tiebreak decided the bronze: the United States scored more board points than India and finished fourth. 8 Georgia, Vietnam and Slovenia finished on 16. 8
FIDE elects Timur Turlov president
The General Assembly met in Samarkand with delegates from 196 national federations, three candidates on the ballot and one vote per federation. 10 On the first ballot Timur Turlov took 96 votes, Wadim Rosenstein 76 and Jan Henric Buettner 20, with 192 of the 196 ballots valid and 97 needed for an outright win. 10 Turlov was one vote short, and two hours later the second ballot gave him the presidency by 110 votes to 85. 3 At 38 he becomes the eighth president of FIDE and the second youngest ever elected, succeeding Arkady Dvorkovich, who served two terms from 2018 to 2026. 10
Viswanathan Anand, who has been FIDE's interim president since July, was elected deputy president on Turlov's ticket. 3 The assembly also elected four vice-presidents: Xu Yuhua, Michael Khodarkovsky and Pavel Kolobkov on the first ballot, and Yassin Souleiman Hassan on a second. 3 Kolobkov, a former Russian sports minister and Olympic fencing champion, was challenged over his eligibility, and the Electoral Commission rejected the challenge on the grounds that he had not been nominated by, and does not represent, the Russian federation. 3 Malcolm Pein, Buettner's running mate, withdrew from that vote in protest and said he would not sit on the council while Kolobkov was on it. 3
Buettner said the member federations' decision deserved full respect and wished the new leadership success, adding that "when FIDE succeeds, chess succeeds". 3 Rosenstein said the results had been acknowledged. 3 Turlov told the assembly's delegates and, afterwards, thanked his campaign team and promised that "every member federation, every person will be treated equally well". 3
Also this window
- The first FIDE Excellence Awards were presented in Samarkand on Sunday. The biennial programme, covering September 2024 to August 2026, named Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş as best breakthrough, Levon Aronian as best comeback and India's open and women's teams as best team, while ChessBase India received the first Daniel Naroditsky best creator award, named for the American grandmaster it honours. 11
- Bodhana Sivanandan finished as the youngest woman grandmaster in chess history. England's 11-year-old played all eleven rounds on board one and scored 8/11 for a 2432 performance, the 13th best on board one, losing one game, to Peru's Deysi Cori, and drawing with Ukraine's Anastasiia Hnatyshyn and Georgia's Nana Dzagnidze; England finished 15th, five places above their seeding. 12 She passes Kateryna Lagno's record, set when Lagno took the title in 2002 at 12. 12
- Wesley So won Titled Tuesday on September 29, his first of 2026, starting 7/7 and finishing on 9½/11 after the top three boards all drew in the last round. 13 Denis Lazavik took second on tiebreak from a seven-way tie on nine points, with Dmitry Andreikin third, and the winner's prize was $2,500. 13 Hikaru Nakamura, who did not join the leading pack, reached a Chess.com record blitz rating of 3470 just before the event. 13
- Nakamura won Bullet Brawl on September 26 for the third week in a row, scoring 172 points to Tuan Minh Le's 147 and Oleksandr Bortnyk's 144, his 19th win of 2026 and 68th overall. 14 Anastasia Avramidou took the top women's prize with 102 points. 14
- The XTX Markets London Chess Classic returns from November 24 to December 6. The opening ceremony and draw of lots will be held at the Tower of London, with most games at the Novotel West in Hammersmith, and the ten-player Masters field is still to be announced; Nodirbek Abdusattorov won last year's edition with a six-game winning streak, two points clear. 15
- The FIDE World Schools Team Championship began its European stage in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia, on September 29. Twenty-seven school teams from 25 countries are playing for places in December's Grand Final, and after two rounds five teams were on maximum match points, with Minsk's Gymnasium No. 50 leading on game points. 16
What to watch next
| Date (Europe/Sofia) | Event & location | Checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| Through October 1 | 6th Gambit GM Closed, Prague | A ten-player round robin in the Czech capital; after three rounds the American FIDE master Kannan Vaidyanathan led on 2½/3. 8 |
| November 10–20 | Total Chess World Championship Tour pilot, Budapest | Twenty-four players, and the last six names were added on September 28, among them Levon Aronian, Le Quang Liem and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. 17 |
| November 22 – December 13 | Salesforce FIDE World Championship match, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cologny, Geneva | Gukesh Dommaraju defends his title against Javokhir Sindarov over a maximum of 14 games, with the opening ceremony on November 22 and the first classical game on November 24; both players are 20, which makes it the youngest world championship contest in history. 18 |
| November 24 – December 6 | XTX Markets London Chess Classic, London | A ten-player Masters, an invitation-only Challengers, a nine-round Swiss and open sections, with the Super Rapid on the closing weekend. 15 |
| 2028 | 47th Chess Olympiad, Abu Dhabi | The next Olympiad goes to the United Arab Emirates, after a Samarkand edition with a record 208 open teams and 191 women's teams. 719 |
References
- 1
- 2ChessBase: Clear win for China in Women's Chess Olympiad
en.chessbase.com
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8The Week in Chess 1664, 28 September 2026
theweekinchess.com
- 9ChessBase: Samarkand R10 (women) — Kazakhstan close the gap
en.chessbase.com
- 10ChessBase: Timur Turlov elected President of FIDE
en.chessbase.com
- 11ChessBase: Inaugural FIDE Excellence Awards
en.chessbase.com
- 12ChessBase: Bodhana Sivanandan — Youngest-Ever WGM at 11
en.chessbase.com
- 13
- 14
- 15ChessBase: XTX London Chess Classic returns
en.chessbase.com
- 16ChessBase: WSTC 2026 European Stage begins in Tsaghkadzor
en.chessbase.com
- 17
- 18ChessBase: Salesforce FIDE World Championship Match 2026
en.chessbase.com
- 19ChessBase: Chess Olympiad — Live!
en.chessbase.com
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