2025 Fog Of War Championship: Keleberda Wins Fog Of War Championship In Grand Final Reset

FM Tymur Keleberda was crowned the 2025 Chess.com Fog Of War champion after defeating IM Nhat Minh To in a tense Grand Final and subsequent Grand Final in the last event of the Community Championship Series for the year.

Keleberda’s event was nearly cut short when he suffered a loss to Nhat Minh in the Semifinals; however, the Canadian barely put a foot wrong after relegation and eventually avenged himself, winning the title and the $750 top prize.

Bracket

Standings

What Is Fog Of War?

Fog of War is a chess variant originally proposed by Jens Bæk Nielsen and Torben Osted in 1989 under the name of Dark Chess. In this variant, players can see only the squares where their pieces can legally move.

Players can’t see which enemy piece captures one of their own unless at least one other piece is “looking” at the square where the capture takes place. The same is true for pawn promotions—players can only see that an opponent has promoted if they have a piece eyeing the promotion square.

Qualifiers: Nhat Minh Clinches Final Spot

The Fog Of War Championship commenced on Thursday with eight 75-minute arena qualifiers with a 3+2 time control and one knockout spot on the line for the respective winners. Thanks to the performance of variant aficionados Patrik Saar and Nhat Minh, Hungary was the only country that produced two knockout candidates.

The qualification of Nhat Minh was particularly thrilling—the Duck Chess champion found himself in second place with just a few minutes left in the eighth qualifier but was able to overcome the leader, “GoChessDBT,” in a 98-move, maneuvering marathon.

Despite the pair both finishing on 81 points, Nhat Minh’s superior tiebreaks secured him the knockout berth.

Knockout: Keleberda Emerges Through The Fog

In the Winners Quarterfinals, Nhat Minh and Keleberda were the only players able to clean sweep their opposition, while the two GM qualifiers, Guha Mitrabha and Martyn Kravtsiv, were pushed all the way.

In a sudden-death tiebreaker against the untitled Craig Mascarenhas, Mitrabha showed his class and won the match with the exchange sacrifice 27.Rxc6!, revealing his bishop as an attacker of Black’s rook on d3. 

Kravtsiv was less fortunate. Against FM Clement Rabineau, the Ukrainian lost 1.5-2.5 after blundering his queen in the fourth game of the match. With the fog removed, it is obvious that 30.Qg3?? is a mistake; however, Kravtsiv had no way of knowing that stacked rooks awaited him on the g-file with fog in play.

Both semifinals needed five games to decide them and for the first time in the event, a clash between eventual Grand Finalists Nhat Minh and Keleberda took place. In their final game, Nhat Minh shocked Keleberda after the latter moved his rook to the seventh rank.

Although Keleberda’s rook seemed to be well-placed, a surprise was waiting for him. In the shadows lay a queen and knight, both attacking the h7-rook!

On the other side of the draw, Rabineau overcame Mitrabha, relegating the Indian powerhouse to the Losers bracket.

Nhat Minh continued to play quickly and carefully in the Winners Final, dispatching Rabineau. The final game of this match ended abruptly after Rabineau “hung his king” in the middlegame.

As Nhat Minh booked his Grand Final spot, an unlikely hero was making an inspired run in the Losers bracket. Keleberda defeated Kravtsiv 3-0 in the Quarterfinals, before bowling over Ondrej Sigut and Rabineau in respective matches to earn a second shot at Nhat Minh. Revenge was sweet for Keleberda in this match, and he took it by a 2.5-1.5 scoreline.

In the fourth game, the Canadian piled pressure on White’s c-pawn and when he “had enough information to take on c4,” according to commentator Jai Sandhu, he did just that. Scrambling to defend, Nhat Minh didn’t realize that Keleberda had captured the pawn with his bishop and blundered a full rook.

Since Nhat Minh won the Winners bracket, a Grand Final win was not enough for Keleberda to claim the Fog of War crown. He also needed to beat his opponent in a Grand Final reset.

And with momentum on his side, Keleberda went on to beat Nhat Minh at his best. The match was decided in the final blitz game, where mishaps on both sides kept the commentators on their toes.

After missing a winning move, Nhat Minh made a decisive blunder of his own, taking White’s a-pawn that was still protected by the a1-rook. With this mistake, all hope was lost for the Duck Chess champion and he resigned.

With a spring in his step, Keleberda spoke to the commentary team following his victory about the importance of king safety in the variant: “I always was making sure that my king was in a safe place.” He went on to explain that he could then do “whatever he wanted with his pieces” once this was achieved.

This marked Keleberda’s first time winning a Chess.com championship, and he will undoubtedly be a threat in future events if his strategy in Fog of War is anything to go by.