World Chess Weekly: Wesley Leads U.S. Champs, Gukesh Gears Up For Euro Club Cup

Serious elite chess action has taken place on both sides of the Atlantic this week with two huge tournaments and another just about to start which features a slew of big names.

The European Team Chess Championships, or "the Euros", came to a thrilling finish on Tuesday, with Ukraine scooping gold in the Open discussed here and Poland taking gold in the Women's.

Meanwhile, the super-strong U.S. Chess Championships kicked off in Saint Louis on Sunday, notably without world number-two GM Hikaru Nakamura.

The five-time champion has been busy on his "Road To The Candidates" quest as he tries to rack up the rating points he needs qualify for FIDE's all-important world championship final eliminator.

Nakamura's strategy of travelling to obscure events to beat up on amateurs has caused a ripple of controversy among some fans, but nothing major.

Nakamura's Quest

As a result, the popular streamer isn't in Saint Louis squaring up to the big dogs.

Instead, he was at the 2025 Maritime Open in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, where he beat 12-year-old WFM Michelle Zhang, rated 1917 FIDE, and finished the event with 5.5/6.

It is a fun journey. Wherever will he pitch up next?

By Friday, the event in Saint Louis was up to Round 5.

GM Wesley So leads the Open with 3/4 after recording wins over GM Sam Shankland and GM Ray Robson, and draws against GMs Hans Niemann and Abhimanyu Mishra. GMs Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian are half a point behind.

IM Anna Sargsyan is a point in front of the pack in the Women's section on 3.5/4 having beaten FMs Rose Atwell and Megan Paragua, and GM Irina Krush. Earlier this week, we reported on how WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan, who is married to Nakamura, is playing while seven months pregnant.

The U.S. Chess Championships is due to run until October 26. Updates and round reports are posted on the Saint Louis Chess Club website.

Gukesh In Action

On Saturday, another huge event in the European chess calendar starts: the similar-sounding European Club Cup in Rhodes, Greece. This is a truly super-sized tournament organized by the European Chess Union (ECU), which marked its 40th birthday this week.

The European Club Cup pits chess clubs against each other, rather than the nations which played in the "Teams" championship which finished on Tuesday. As a result, clubs can recruit players from around the world and the line-up is star-studded.

This year a record-breaking 122 clubs have entered, fielding nearly 900 players, of whom around 500 are titled. It is a seven round Swiss tournament with classical time controls and a €40,000 prize fund.

India is represented strongly with World Champion GM Gukesh D the big draw along with GMs Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi, Pentala Harikrishna, and Nihal Sarin.

Other notable players include man of the moment GM Vincent Keymer, who is up to six in the FIDE live rankings, plus super GMs Anish Giri, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Vladimir Fedoseev, China's Wei Yi and Yangyi Yu, Richard Rapport, and Parham Maghsoodloo.

The in-form GM Divya Deshmukh is one of the strongest women in the event along with GMs Zhu Jiner, Anna Muzychuk and Mariya Muzychuk, Aleksandra Goryachkina, Nana Dzagnidze, and Alexandra Kosteniuk.

The top seeded clubs in the Open are Alkaloid which features Erigaisi, BayeganPendik and Gukesh's SuperChess. In the Women section top seeds are Cercle d’échecs de Monte-Carlo, Turkish Airlines and Tajfun SK Ljubljana.

The event is undeniably elite and runs from October 18 to 26.

That's it, you're up-to-date.