Chess Year 2025 In Review: How Well Do You Remember Who Said What?
The year 2025 has been an unbelievable one, most remarkably because of the outstanding play by elite grandmasters but also because of the amazing statements that they and leading chess officials made last year.
Have some fun and see if you can correctly identify who said the quotations below. The correct answers are identified at the end (but no peeking). How well do you remember what these players said?
Long Games
About the 2025 FIDE Grand Swiss—which had extremely long games in the Open that added 50 minutes at move 40 and an additional 15 minutes at move 6—in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September, who said, “It's ridiculous that a game lasts more than eight hours”?
a. GM Yagiz Erdogmus who survived a 190-move, 8.5-hour game in round five against GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov.
b. Abdusattorov who similarly survived the game that lasted more than eight hours.
c. Two-time world championship challenger GM Ian Nepomniachtchi who lost 10 rating points despite losing just one game.
d. Argentinian-born GM Alan Pichot, who now represents Spain and did not play in the event.
Active Player
Who said, “I'm happy that I'm still an active player. I'm in quite good shape"?
a. Estonian GM Iivo Nei, (born 1931), the oldest living grandmaster who received the honorary grandmaster title from FIDE in 2024.
b. GM Boris Gelfand (born 1968), a Soviet-born Israeli grandmaster who was a world championship challenger in 2012 and remains a respected player.
c. GM Garry Kasparov (born 1963), who demonstrated his enduring skill by winning 2025 Clutch Chess: The Legends with two games to spare.
d. GM Vasyl Ivanchuk (born 1969) who was one of three 50-year-olds competing in the FIDE Grand Swiss in September.
Better Than Opponents
At the 2025 Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in April, who said, “Mostly I was understanding the positions better than my opponents, and I was happy about that”?
a. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi who finished in seventh place and won $30,000.
b. GM Fabiano Caruana who finished in third place and won $100,000.
c. GM Hikaru Nakamura who finished in second place and won $140,000.
d. GM Magnus Carlsen who finished in first and won the $200,000 top prize.
Determining Candidate Spots
Who said, “It's incredibly cruel to decide the Candidates spots by tiebreaks as they do”?
a. GM Matthias Bluebaum who took the Candidates spot on tiebreaks at the Swiss Grand Prix.
b. GM Alireza Firouzja who had worse tiebreaks than Bluebaum who took the Candidates spot.
c. GM Vincent Keymer who also had worse tiebreaks than Bluebaum.
d. Carlsen after Bluebaum took the Candidates spot on tiebreaks.
Erdogmus Plays Great Chess
Who said, “[Yagiz Kaan] Erdogmus is really, really good, at almost unprecedented levels at that age"?
a. World number-15 GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after losing to Erdogmus 3.5-2.5 in Clash of Generations II in December.
b. GM Arjun Erigaisi after losing to Erdogmus in December at the World Rapid Championship.
c. Firouzja after losing to Erdogmus in April in Titled Tuesday.
d. Carlsen on who impressed him the most at the FIDE Grand Swiss.
Competitive Fairness
What chess organization released a statement with this comment: “The accuracy of ratings and competitive fairness are paramount for chess”?
a. Russian Chess Federation
b. Asian Chess Federation
c. European Chess Federation
d. FIDE
FIDE And Rules
Who said, “FIDE never applies the rules retroactively”?
a. GM Oleksandr Bortnyk in discussing how FIDE updates rules.
b. Carlsen in discussing attire standards for FIDE tournaments.
c. Nakamura in discussing the 400-rule rating change.
d. GM Emil Sutovsky, CEO of FIDE, in explaining changes to calculating rapid and blitz ratings.
Dangerous Player
Who said, “As long as I’m in good shape, I’ll be a dangerous man”?
a. FM James Canty III in advance of the 7th World Chessboxing Championships in Loznica, Serbia.
b. IM Lawrence Trent, who participated in the celebrity Mogul Chessboxing Championship in 2022, in announcing future chessboxing plans.
c. GM Aman Hambleton, who also participated in the Mogul Chessboxing Championship, in discussing future plans.
d. Carlsen in anticipating the 2025 FIDE World Rapid Championship in Qatar.
How did you do? By now, you have probably realized that all correct answers are d. I hope you enjoyed this diversion from chess games and puzzles and will commit to being really observant about who says what in 2026.
Now it’s your turn. What other comments by someone connected to the chess world are also interesting?
Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021. This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.
At Chess.com, he has been an editor (part-time) since 2019 and has edited news articles and tournament reports—including those of the Candidates and World Championship Tournaments and other major events—by titled players and noted chess writers as well as Game of the Day annotations by leading grandmasters. He has also been a contributing writer of chess terms, e-books, and general interest articles for ChessKid.com.
He enjoys “top blogger” status at Chess.com. His blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America for several years. In addition, he has also been the recipient of first-place CJA awards for feature article, humorous contribution, online review, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article.