WR Chess Defends World Team Blitz Title After Winning Appeal
GMs Alireza Firouzja, Hikaru Nakamura, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave were among the stars as WR Chess won the FIDE World Blitz Team Championship for a second year in a row. The greatest controversy came in the Quarterfinals, when GM Vincent Keymer's Germany and Friends won 4-2 but saw that result annulled after WR Chess complained their players were late as the organizers forgot to announce the start time. GM Alexander Grischuk's KazChess took silver, and GM Levon Aronian's Hexamind bronze.
2025 FIDE World Blitz Team Championship Bracket
Favorite WR Chess has defended its World Blitz Team Championship crown after what looks, on paper, to have been a very smooth final day. Of eight official mini-matches played, the team won seven by a two-point or more margin, only conceding a 3-3 draw to Hexamind in the Semifinals.
The team featured six of the top-11 players on the blitz live rating list—Nakamura, Firouzja, GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, GM Wesley So, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, and GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, with the other top teams in London featuring none.
The team could even afford to leave out So on the final day, with team captain GM Jan Gustafsson commenting: "We have six world class players and then to be the guy just sitting in the room, that’s arguably the hardest job. We got lucky, everybody played well, but shoutout to Wesley for enduring that as well."
The day wasn't quite as smooth as it could have been, however. Let's take it stage by stage.
Last 16: Favorites Dominate, Though KazChess Stumble
16 teams had fought for seven hours on Saturday to book their places in Sunday's knockout, but for eight of them the adventure was soon over. The favorites won the first mini-match in all eight encounters in the Last 16, but it was notable that two teams, Rookies and Theme International Trading, hit back to force tiebreaks.
Rookies, a young team that lives up to its name, scored a shock 5-1 win over the eventual silver medalists, and although the team went down in flames 5.5-0.5 in the tiebreak, 16-year-old IM Daniyal Sapenov earned the bragging rights of scoring a stunning 2.5/3 against GM Richard Rapport.
Quarterfinals: WR Chess Grab Controversial Win, Hexamind Eliminate Rapid Champions
The Quarterfinals were where the matchups really became interesting, and it started with a sensation as Germany and Friends took down the favorite WR Chess 4-2, with Nepomniachtchi, Firouzja, and Nakamura all beaten (GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda would later count his win here as his best game!).
Soon, however, it turned out that an appeal had been lodged, since several WR Chess players had been around two minutes late to the three-minute blitz games. Firouzja was "only" around 20 seconds late, but went on to lose on time in an equal position.
WR Chess team captain Gustafsson, who had the awkward situation of also being the German head coach, gave details to WIM Charlize Van Zyl, explaining:
They always put the start time in this captains' admin group that we have, and this time the last communication was that 15:17 is when the line-ups are due, which was written at 15:15, and after that nothing, so we were waiting for the start time to be in the group. Nothing happened, we went, but you can’t put the last communication 15:17, line-ups are due, and then start 15:22 without informing us. It’s a fairly obvious case, in my opinion.
It took well over an hour for the appeal to be accepted, with the failure in communication and decision of the arbiters not to wait for WR Chess mentioned, though it was far from a clear-cut case.
The games were played, and it's unlikely they would have been replayed if WR Chess had won, while Germany and Friends player Bohdan Lobkin felt the decision would have gone the other way if they had been the ones appealing.
🇺🇦 Bohdan Lobkin explains what happened in the match against WR Chess from the Germany and Friends’ perspective.
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) June 15, 2025
Bohdan plays at board 6 for Germany and Friends. pic.twitter.com/kWh0iRTKNb
After the day was over, WR Chess top-board Nepomniachtchi conceded the verdict could have gone either way, and that there was no good solution to the situation:
This whole appeal thing was a mess, to be honest, and I wasn’t sure if the appeal would be successful or not. Eventually they allowed us to replay the match, but I don’t think there was a good decision.
"This whole appeal thing was a mess."
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) June 15, 2025
The winner interview with Ian Nepomniachtchi 🏆 pic.twitter.com/eZKM6Af75c
Lobkin revealed his team seriously considered not playing on, but in the end they did, with WR Chess winning 4.5-1.5 and 4-2, including two wins for Firouzja.
Elsewhere GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov scored 2-0 over GM Nihal Sarin as Uzbekistan defeated Ashdod Elit Chess Club, and we saw two of the podium finishers from the Rapid eliminated.
GM Viswanathan Anand's Freedom had taken bronze on Friday, but were knocked out after a 3-3 tie with Grischuk's KazChess was followed by a narrow 3.5-2.5 defeat in the second match. A revitalized Rapport was instrumental as he scored two wins, while it all ultimately came down to Grischuk winning a borderline lost position against Anand.
Grischuk commented, "Vishy totally outplayed me, but there was always a hope with two rooks and queens on the board, and actually at some point the mate became unavoidable for him."
“Vishy totally outplayed me, but there was always hope with two rooks and the queen on the board.”
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) June 15, 2025
Grischuk on his win over Anand. pic.twitter.com/T7KD1167ap
The Quarterfinals were also the end of the road for the Rapid champions, MGD1, who fell to the silver medalists, Hexamind. A 3-3 tie was followed by a 4-2 win for Hexamind, where all six games were decisive.
The last game to finish was a 112-move win for GM Anish Giri, though earlier GM Pentala Harikrishna had had a remarkable chance to win the game and tie the match—all other things being equal.
Giri beats Harikrishna and Hexamind are through to the Semifinals, knocking out Rapid gold medalists MGD1! pic.twitter.com/yhweusFjyG
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 15, 2025
Team MGD1 went on to win the battle for fifth place.
Semifinals: WR Chess Face Toughest Test, Reach Final Vs. KazChess
WR Chess seemed to be cruising when the team scored a crushing 5.5-0.5 victory in the first mini-match against Hexamind Chess Team, but they scraped just a 3-3 draw in the second match after losses for Nepomniachtchi, to Aronian, and GM Hou Yifan, who blundered her bishop in a drawn pure rook vs. bishop endgame against GM Divya Deshmukh.
It all came down to GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave's insane win from a dead-lost position against GM Leinier Dominguez. That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.
KazChess meanwhile narrowly defeated Uzbekistan to clinch the other spot in the Final.
Final: WR Chess Retains Its Crown, Hexamind Take Bronze
WR Chess took the title with two 4-2 victories in the final showdown.
Asked about who had played the best chess, Vachier-Lagrave noted Firouzja's games were "fun to watch," adding, "Even his draw with Sasha Grischuk felt quite nice—I don’t know about the accuracy, but to navigate these complications with so little time is fun."
That game from the first match of the Final was wild, with the final sequence absolutely brilliant by both players.
Grischuk finds a brilliant draw vs. Firouzja as Nakamura scores a crucial win vs. Rapport! pic.twitter.com/2VGa7STXCG
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 15, 2025
The wins came for team owner Wadim Rosenstein, who hit form with a four-game winning streak just when it was needed, and Nakamura, whom you can also see in the video above defeating Rapport.
That was a game where Rapport briefly had a chance on move 32 before Nakamura built up pressure and then pounced with 40.Nd5!. Then there was no salvation for Black.
Check out Nakamura's recap of the day's action:
Nakamura and Firouzja both went on to win very smoothly in the second mini-match, while the finishing touch was applied when Vachier-Lagrave came back from the dead to beat 16-year-old IM Aldiya Ansat.
Despair for Aldiyar Ansat, who loses a game he was winning vs. MVL, though by this point WR Chess had already secured at least a draw that would give them the title! https://t.co/hgyUfpXbcW pic.twitter.com/5E9DTkJWrE
— chess24 (@chess24com) June 15, 2025
WR Chess, led by Nepomniachtchi...
Despite my best effort, WR Team won Blitz section. Congrats! 🤝🫡 #FIDERapidBlitzTeams
— Ian Nepomniachtchi (@lachesisq) June 15, 2025
...had deservedly won gold for a second year in a row, while Aronian's Hexamind teammates (gently) erupted as he beat Abdusattorov to clinch team bronze to add to silver in the Rapid.
Levon Aronian wins — and the Hexamind Chess Team erupts! 🥉 A clutch win to secure 3rd place at the FIDE World Blitz Team Championship! 💥#FIDERapidBlitzTeams pic.twitter.com/I1EhUipWEd
— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) June 15, 2025
That's all for the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Team Championships, with several players now needing to set off for Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where the 2025 UzChess Cup kicks off with round one on Thursday, June 19.
How to rewatch?
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Daniel King and IM Jovanka Houska.
The 2025 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships ran June 11-15 in London, UK, with over 50 teams of six players competing. Each team had to feature at least one female player and one "recreational player," never rated 2000+. The Rapid was a 12-round Swiss with a time control of 15 minutes for all moves, plus a 10-second increment per move. The Blitz (3+2) began with teams playing a round-robin in pools before the top 16 played a knockout, where each clash featured two mini-matches.
Previous coverage:
Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.
