SuperChess, the Romanian club with an in-form world champion on top board, won the European Club Cup in Rhodes, Greece, on Saturday. Scoring an undefeated 4/5, GM Gukesh Dommaraju is back in the world’s top 10. Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo won the Women’s section convincingly.
40th European Club Cup | Final Standings (Top 10)
29th European Women’s Club Cup | Final Standings (Top 10)
The annual European Club Cup is always a special event in the calendar as it combines top-level chess with amateur players. The strongest European clubs come together—this year with a record-breaking participation of 122 clubs—and meet with many lower-ranked teams who participate for the social aspect. And, let’s face it, the island of Rhodes as a location isn’t bad either.
The Open section had no fewer than 102 teams, while 20 teams played the Women’s championship. That meant a total of 800 players, including 111 GMs, 137 IMs, 11 WGMs, 16 WIMs, and 142 FMs competing for their teams.
SuperChess Wins Open Section
The strongest teams in the Open were Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports from Turkey (with an average of 2711), Alkaloid from North Macedonia (2701), defending Champions Novy Bor from the Czech Republic (2683), SuperChess from Romania (2678), and Tuxera Aquaprofit Nagykanizsai Sakk Klub from Hungary (2638).
Fourth-seeded SuperChess did surprisingly well, winning all seven matches. That way, the team coached by GM Ivan Sokolov finished two match points ahead of Alkaloid and Novy Bor.
Especially in the last three rounds, the winners faced strong opposition. Meeting top seed Bayegan Pendik was the first big test in round five. Up till then, SuperChess hadn’t lost a single board game, and the same could be said at the end of the match.
It looked like a bit of a wild game, but in reality, GM Parham Maghsoodloo was winning most of the time against GM Richard Rapport. A strong performance by the Iranian player:
The next day was Gukesh’s time to shine. With draws on the other five boards, the World Champion won a decisive game against his compatriot, GM Arjun Erigaisi. With strong play, Gukesh had won a pawn, and with a knight and four pawns vs. a bishop and three, it looked promising. As it turned out, Arjun could have drawn the game by giving up the bishop.
The last round saw the leaders facing runner-up Tuxera Aquaprofit Nagykanizsai from Hungary, who were one match point behind. It was a close call, as Maghsoodloo lost this time but two wins on boards five and six sealed the deal for SuperChess. Especially the final phase of the game between GMs Daniil Yuffa and Bogdan-Daniel Deac was interesting.
Thank you @DGukesh !!
Your exceptional performance and inspiration you gave to the whole team made this great result possible!!
Thank You! https://t.co/hiRn3EGYqe
— Sokolov Ivan (@GMSokolovIvan) October 27, 2025
Monaco Wins Women’s Section
The top teams in the Women’s section were Cercle d’Echecs de Monte-Carlo (rating average 2490), Turkish Airlines Sports Club from Turkey (2474), defending Champions Tajfun SK Ljubljana from Slovenia (2455), SuperChess from Romania (2421) and Sirmium Sremska Mitrovica from Serbia (2409).
Monaco did not disappoint and won the event with a three-point margin. Only in the final round did the team drop one match point, as the match with Turkish Airlines sports club saw four draws.
In two matches, IM Alina Kashlinskaya scored the decisive win alongside three draws. On the third day, against Tajfun SK Ljubljana, she beat IM Vantika Agrawal, and she also won in the important penultimate round:
Kashlinskaya won a nice game that started with a typical attack on the kingside in a French opening, with the pawn sacrifice f4-f5:
A game that grabbed the headlines on the first day was WFM Bodhana Sivanandan‘s win against former women’s world champion GM Mariya Muzychuk. The 10-year-old super talent from England, who played board one for the team with the lovely name “She plays to win Lionesses,” didn’t just win accidentally due to some blunder but really outplayed her experienced opponent. Bravo!
How to review?
You can review the European Club Cup on the European Chess Union’s YouTube channel. You can also review the games on our Events Page: Open | Women.
The 2025 European Club Cup (Open and Women) is Europe’s annual chess tournament for club teams organized by the European Chess Union. It is a seven-round team Swiss event and this year it took place October 19-25, 2025, in Rhodes, Greece. The time control was 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game with a 30-second increment starting from move one.
