Party ballet: how our chess players started on the "Big Swiss"

The "Big Swiss" in Samarkand is not going very well for the Russians in the open tournament so far. After four rounds, the chances of getting into the top 2 and entering the 2026 candidates tournament are probably saved only by Yan Nepomnyashchy and Andrey Esipenko. Daniil Dubov, Volodar Murzin and Maxim Matlakov were already 1.5 points behind the leader Parham Magsudlu. The rest are even bigger. The situation is much more pleasant in the women's tournament. Ekaterina Lagno heads the table together with the representative of India Vaishali Rameshbabu. Five chess players are half a point behind them.

Three out of four

Three–time world champion Ekaterina Lagno started the tournament with a draw with the finalist of the 2023 World Cup Nurgul Salimova from Bulgaria. After that, one of the most decorated chess players of our time won three games in a row.

Moreover, she had very strong rivals. Opening of the 2025 World Cup Umida Omonova, playing at home, representative of Kazakhstan Ksenia Balabayeva and Chinese Yuxin Song. So far, only Vaishali Rameshbabu has maintained the same pace (+3). The current champion of the "Big Swiss" won three victories in a row, including over the former Russian Olga Badelko, but in the fourth round she could not beat the native of Elista Dinara Wagner, who now represents Germany. In the fifth round, Lagno and Vaishali will play a face-to-face match, and if Ekaterina wins, she will be able to become the main favorite of the tournament in Samarkand.

Olga Girya, another Russian, is still in the top 10. The Olympic champion resumed her career last year, so few expected her to be so quick. In the first round, Girya defeated the second seed Tan Zhongyi. After that, Olga scored three draws, including with two-time world blitz champion Bibisara Asaubayeva. In the fifth round, the Langepas native will play against 11th-seeded Karissa Yip.

"Talking about weak competition is complete nonsense"

Senior coach of the Russian youth national team Evgeny Tomashevsky — about the results of the successful Olympics and the brightest games of our young stars

Anna Shukhman and Leia Garifullina are leading with a score of 50%. The rest of the Russians didn't have a good start. Polina Shuvalova has only 1.5 points so far, Valentina Gunina has one point. In the third round, Valentina complained of health problems, and the former world blitz champion needed a doctor. On Sunday, September 7, Gunina also needed medical help, and we wish her a speedy recovery!

It should be noted that the strongest Russian chess player of recent years, Alexandra Goryachkina, has entered the open tournament. She has already secured entry to the 2026 candidates tournament through the FIDE Grand Prix, so she can experiment. And so far, everything is going great. Despite losing in the first round to a 14-year-old prodigy from Turkey, Yagyz Kaan Erdogmush (Goryachkina made several mistakes in time constraints), Alexandra was able to pull herself together. She played tight games with Frenchman Etienne Bacrot and Turk Ediz Gurel, and defeated German representative Dmitry Kollars in the fourth round.

Hope for Nepomnyashchy and Esipenko

Goryachkina has two points. This is more than the current Russian champion Vladislav Artemyev, the experienced Alexander Grischuk and the country's main talent Ivan Zemlyansky (three have 1.5 each). The latter started the tournament with a victory in a seven-hour match with Alexander Incic from Serbia, but failed to build on the success. In the next three games, the 15-year-old grandmaster scored only half a point, losing to Indian Rameshbab Pragnanandha and Israeli representative Maxim Rodstein.

Daniil Dubov, Maxim Matlakov and Volodar Murzin have four draws each. In the fifth round, all three of them need to win in order to try to move up the table. Andrey Esipenko and the strongest Russian chess player, Yan Nepomnyashchy, have half a point more. Esipenko beat Ukrainian Anton Korobov in the second round, but then failed to beat Chilean Cristobal Henriques Villagra and Azerbaijani Aydin Suleinmanli. Let's remind that at the 2023 Big Swiss Cup, Esipenko fought for a place in the top 2 until the last round, but everything was crossed out by an insulting defeat from Anish Giri. So we are waiting for another breakthrough from Andrey.

Nepomniachtchi also has only one victory so far — in the second round over 16-year-old Ediz Gyurel from Turkey. In the fifth round, I will play against the Greek Nicolas Theodorou, and this is a good opportunity to try to return to the leadership group.

Your own in the boards: how our national team won the Chess Olympiad

Excellent performance by Zemlyansky, Vetokhin, Uskov and Shukhman in Colombia

— Is my goal in this tournament? Try to guess," said Yan Nepomnyashchy. — After so many years, it feels like I'm starting everything from scratch. Let's see where this leads. I still like classic tournaments, although it is difficult and sometimes boring to prepare for them. I would love to play classics more, but invitations don't always fit into my schedule. However, this year there is both the "Big Swiss" and the World Cup.

The world blitz champion also spoke about the main difficulty of modern chess.

"As for the form, it all depends on what I see in my own parties,— Jan continued. — I was unhappy with my game and the way I realized the advantage. But maybe it's enough to win just one game to really get involved. And you shouldn't be too strict with yourself — you need to appreciate the work that you have already done. The difficulty of modern chess, especially in openings, is that knowledge becomes obsolete very quickly. Ten years ago, there were "good openings," but everything else remained vague. There are no bad openings or bad options today. The amount of things that need to be remembered becomes simply colossal.

Recall that Nepomnyashchy won two candidates tournaments by playing two matches for the chess crown, so he missed a number of strong tournaments in the previous two qualifying cycles.