Ukraine is a big and beautiful country. Chess is an integral part of our culture. Symbiosis of the Ukrainian style (attack!) and the Soviet chess school showed the world a lot of great maestros: from David Bronstein to Vasily Ivanchuk and Ruslan Ponomarev.

The online community of Ukrainian players (Team Ukraine) was founded in 2008 on the site chess.com. Today we have 1200+ members, channel Chess Team Ukraine TV and in plans - the creation of originall Academy. We are proud of such participants: @R-Ponomariov (World  chess champion), @severomorskij (olympic player and Europa champion), @Mikhail_Golubev (GM and chess book writer), @evgenysharapov (the best 3-day chess player on World) atc. The team is open to players from other countries who loves Ukraine and ukrainian culture.

Team Ukraine is an active community. Our activity has no money prizes, but we are based on enthusiasm, respect, love to chess and the desire to glorify our country.

One of the main advantages of chess.com as an Internet site, there were competitions between the countries. Until recently, it was only three-day chess. And the blue-yellow flag you could see in every championship!

However last year good known with a Pro Chess League chess.com created Live Chess World League. This is the opportunity for national teams to measure their strength in the format of a live game - in chess blitz, with a control of 5 minutes and 2 seconds / move. Great news for fans of live games!

In the new championship hundreds of players from all over the world joined the screens of monitors in hot fights!

Last year we played on the finals, but Team Russia became the champions. Russian team is the second big national group (4000+) on the site, after India Team. A worthy opponent!

This year started the second season. New and unexpected was the chopping championship into two separate "disciplines": a blitz (5/2) and a bullet (1/1) chess. Launched in May 2018, matches between national teams held for three months. Let me talk about each championship more detail.

In the bullet championship entered ten countries. Team Ukraine got a bad start, I mean a defeat from the team of Romania. Also I remember a painful loss in  the match against the world-famous blitzers, Serbs!

And when it seemed that everything was over, the Ukrainians were making a mighty spurt. Peru, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Kazakhstan are defeated!

Its one my game, against Peru Team player!

The situation before the last round was dramatic. Again, our main opponent was waiting for us, and only the victory in the match gave us the "gold" of the championship. The Russians were a draw enough to be the first!

Forty-five best players presented each team. What a fight! 47-43 and incredible joy! Ukraine - champion chess.com for the bullet!

This is the first "gold" of such a championship in the history of our team.

Chess Team Ukraine TV

The events of the blitz were even more complex and, therefore, dramatic. And again we had two defeats and seven wins in matches against other national teams. In the group stage we took the third place. But the race began again at the playoff stage.

Quarter-final match against a strong chess country, Kazakhstan, we passed with enthusiasm.

And now! Semi-final against Serbia! The match statistics were terrible. Five previous matches the Serbs was beating us!

And here is it. Ukraine - Serbia match. 91 boards. Serbian curse completely destroyed! Final score is 95-87 and we go to the finals ... Uh.

The final game attracted the great attention of many chess.com users. On August 19, not only Russians and Ukrainians, but also players from the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Armenia, Belarus, Turkey, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Canada, Azerbaijan, Iceland taked their PCs, laptops and mobile devices and the battle has began!

Do you know the words "do not believe your eyes"? I was joined the match and did not believe. Ukraine brought to the match 240 players! Under the tricolor of Russia, only 163. Many Ukrainians did not have a opponent. David and Goliath!

And the Ukrainian David defeated his strongest opponent! 

The second Gold medal. And Team Ukraine is double champion now! Congratulations!

This is a great result.

We learned that you can start with a defeat, but become a champion.

Our strength in unity, and the contribution of each player can be decisive!

We are proud!

Thank you, chess.com!

And its time for some interesting games

Serbia - Ukraine. Semi-Final match

Russia-Ukraine. Final match.