Ukraine, Poland Lead European Team Championships At Halfway Point
The Ukrainian Open Team and the Polish Women's team lead the 2025 European Team Championships after round five of the nine-round event. The tournament is a semi-annual competition between European nations and a good test for countries to test lineups for next year's Olympiad.
Standings
Open Section
Much of the continent is represented, but not all countries, as GM Aryan Tari pointed out.
Yesterday the European Team Championship started in Georgia, but sadly without team Norway. It’s heartbreaking that a nation with the world’s best player for 15 years can’t find the budget to send its top players to compete
— Aryan Tari (@aryan_tari) October 6, 2025
In the open section, the Serbian team led after four rounds, but ran into a determined Ukrainian team in round five. The critical game in that match was GM Igor Kovalenko's win over GM Aleksandar Indjic. The Serbian grandmaster had a strong attack, but Kovalenko refuted the sacrifice and finally castled his king to safety on move 29! Kovalenko has been serving the in the Ukrainian military during the ongoing war, but still manages to keep his chess on an impressive level.
Behind Ukraine's nine points, Serbia is now tied with the Netherlands and France with eight points. France is missing their biggest stars grandmasters, GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firouzja, but their other players are performing well. In round five, GM Laurent Fressinet defeated England's GM Michael Adams. For the Netherlands, GM Anish Giri, the recent winner of the FIDE Grand Swiss, performed well, defeating GM Alexei Shirov of Spain the fifth round.
Perhaps surprisingly, Germany is only on 50 percent so far, despite having super-GM Vincent Keymer and newly minted candidate GM Matthias Bluebaum. Bluebaum has had a tough event, scoring just one point in three games.
Women's Section
On the Women's side, Poland has been dominant, winning every match. They have a balanced team, with GM Monika Socko and IMs on the other boards: Alina Kashlinskaya, Aleksandra Maltsevskaya, Oliwia Kiolbasa, and Klaudia Kulon. The star in their round five win against Germany was Kiolbasa, who defeated FM Lara Schulze. White invested too much in her dangerous-looking attack and Black converted the material into a win.
Behind Poland's 10 points are Germany, Georgia, and Ukraine, with eight points each. They have four more rounds to catch up, with round six on Friday, October 10, followed by a rest day before the concluding three rounds.
How to watch?
You can watch the broadcasts on the European Chess Union's YouTube page. The games can also be reviewed from our dedicated events page.
The broadcast was hosted by GM Alojzije Jankovic and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili.
The European Team Chess Championship, which takes place from October 5-14 in Batumi, Georgia, is Europe's most important team event of the year. It is a nine-round team Swiss event with a time control of 9i0 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes, with a 30-second increment starting on move one. The top-three teams from the European Teams Chess Championship will receive Cups and gold, silver, and bronze medals. The best-performing players in each section will also receive gold medals.
