Chessdom had the pleasure to talk to the 2024 European Individual Chess Champion and winner of Baku Open.

You have just won Baku Open in an impressive manner – 2729 performance and a clear first ahead of strong opposition. Tell us more about the tournament and your experience in Baku?

It was my 4th visit to Baku, and for the 3rd time I had a very good showing. The tournament was nicely organized and had an interesting mix of established Grandmasters and young upcoming talents. It was a pleasure to compete and win the tournament.

Is it easier or more difficult to play after you became European Champion?

The level of difficulty is pretty much the same but my “appetite” for wins started growing after the European title.

How do you see the development of chess in Serbia?

There seems to be an increased interest among children. I like the trend and I hope that my success, the national team’s, and the newest European Champion title of Teodora Injac will increase the interest and level of support even more.

Aleksandar Indjic is European Chess Champion 2024 / Teodora Injac shines at the European Women Individual Chess Championship

What are the next tournaments on your calendar?

My next events are two opens – Sharjah Masters (info) and Dubai (info and participants)

Do you plan to participate in more Freestyle events, or classical is your main game?

Classical is my main focus and interest but I wouldn’t be against testing myself in Freestyle in the future. At the moment it is pretty much a closed club.

Chessdom had the pleasure to interview Ryan Amburgy after his success at the 30th Space Coast Open.

The 30th Space Coast Open in Melbourne has just finished. Congratulations on your victory! How does it feel to win in a field containing 2600+ GM and multiple titled players?

It feels amazing. After playing very well in a norm tournament in Charlotte a few weeks ago (information / replay games), it was encouraging to have a good follow-up at this event. I haven’t won an open tournament out of state in over four years, so it’s a really nice feeling, especially being able to hold my highest rated draw ever against GM Zhou in the final round, knowing that a draw would possibly give me a chance to tie for 1st.

What was your best game of the tournament?

My best game of the tournament was my game against FM Rose Atwell, where I managed to win in a very complicated position out of the opening (replay the games here). Rose is a very talented player with a bright future. I was following the US Women’s Junior Championship in July of last year, where she finished a close second behind IM Alice Lee. I knew that she was a dangerous opponent that I couldn’t take lightly. I decided to play a surprise out of the opening and while it didn’t lead to an advantage at the board, I managed the complications a little better and her low time ended up being too much to overcome.

Throwback: Interview with Rose Atwell / 16 year old FM Rose Atwell takes Hikaru Nakamura’s scalp in Freestyle chess

You are close to reaching the 2400 mark. How far is the IM title?

I still need about 70 more FIDE points to get to 2400 FIDE, as well as needing one more norm which I hope to get at the Chicago Open in a few weeks. After that I’m hoping to play a GM Norm tournament in Austin, in mid-June.

Follow: Ryan Amburgy on X

Space Coast Open final standings

Chessdom had the honor to speak to her right after her team victory in the Montenegro Women Chess League

Congratulations Iriana on winning the Montenegro Chess Championship 2025! You have helped the Herceg Novi Outpost Team finally reach a gold medal, after winning silver and bronze in previous editions.

Thank you! It’s been a nice experience. The team captain Lena Govedarica is very professional and has created a good atmosphere. I knew well my teammates and everyone did their best. I am happy to have been part of it.

It is a very successful spring for you. You have played multiple European Women’s Individual Chess Championships in classical chess (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011-2014, 2016-2019, 2021-2025) and finally you bagged a medal – silver in Rhodes! Tell us more about the emotions there and what it is to step on the podium of the most important European competition?

It’s been a good spring indeed. Actually, there were not too many emotions, neither during the event, nor after. I think it might have been one of the reasons why the medal came this time and not before. I was very calm and took it just game by game. It feels good to have won this medal, but nothing has changed. I don’t think of myself differently than before and all I am happy about is the fact that I have rediscovered the joy of playing.

You have added 15 ELO in March playing the Memorial of Krystyna Holuj-Radzikowska 2025 and Ober Liga, 16 in April with the 25th European Women’s Chess Championship 2025 and the German Women Bundesliga, now more is on the way. What are your personal targets?

While rating is indeed important for invitations and other such things, I have stopped paying too much attention to it. My main goal is to enjoy the process of training and playing and not to put too much pressure on myself. There is the World Cup coming in July and hopefully the Grand Swiss in the autumn. I wish to approach these tournaments in good mood and enjoy the chess I play there.

What are your next tournaments in your personal calendar?

I will play for my team in the French women’s league in a few days and then I will take a break from playing. There will be other chess related events I will attend in Bucharest and Iasi, as well as training camps. I would like to play some classical event in June, but for now, I have nothing planned until the World Cup in July.

Is it difficult to find tournament for a female player gravitating around top 50 in the world?

Finding tournaments is easy, more challenging is making a living out of them. If you’re not in the Women’s Grand Prix series, where perhaps top 20 women get, striking a balance between strong tournaments one should play in order to improve their level and the lesser events one plays for financial reasons is a challenge.

You are the outstanding leader among Romanian women chess players, having 150+ elo more than the second player. How do you see chess developing in the country?

I think we are moving in the right direction. Juniors are getting better support from the Romanian Federation and it already shows in their results. We have a lot of good, talented kids and with the right support, I am sure great results could be achieved. Explaining the big gap in rating is not so difficult. I am the only woman who is a professional in Romania and unfortunately, this is not a profession which one could call stable or attractive for a young woman. I can see why most of parents would encourage their daughters to follow another paths. I can only hope that this would eventually change.

Khelnow.com had a chance to interact with Vidit who spoke about his issue of handling time pressure and talked about changes that can make chess more spectator friendly. Here are some excerpts from the conversation.

Q) How do you handle pressure, and time during the matches? What are your plans to avoid time trouble?

Vidit Gujrathi: Yeah, it’s one of the things that I’m struggling with right now, and I haven’t figured it out yet, but clearly, I’m more aware of it now due to this current format. So, there are a couple of ways, and I’ll have to either forcefully try to play fast or change my style a bit so that it suits the faster format, but I haven’t figured it out, so I don’t know.
Q) Your career to date has been loaded with tons of ups and downs. How do you handle the emotions of a downfall after a good streak of matches and keep the motivation going?

Vidit Gujrathi: There are times when, let’s say after the candidates, I felt a loss of motivation, but in general, motivation is not much of a problem, dealing with losses or tough times is something that I’m trying to learn. I feel in the process of becoming a better chess player, I’m ending up being a better person and learning more about myself. So it’s kind of a spiritual journey for me.

Q) Any changes you would like to see in chess rules?

Vidit Gujrathi: There is a possibility to tweak, some of the rules, like if a player has more pieces but it’s a theoretical draw, he should get more than half a point. In general, I think it has to be made more spectator-friendly. That’s the biggest change which is required.
Q) You were asking about a possible app on Twitter. Your views on that?

Vidit Gujrathi: Yeah, it’s not easy to follow chess on the phone nowadays because the apps are a bit cluttered and it’s not seamless to follow all the news, see what the upcoming tournaments are, and who is playing where. It’s very basic if you think of it, but something like this doesn’t exist in the market.

See the full interview here

Here is what Kostya had to share about his experience in Italy and the progress of the ChessDojo platform. Do not forget to follow Kostya on Twitter/X

Hello Kostya, finished shared first at Grand Hotel Adriatico Chess Festival main event

Yes! Sadly I received second on tiebreaks, as I could have won the tournament in the final round had I converted my position.

What was the key game for you there?
I was most proud of my Round 4 win against FM Kalosha (replay the game here) He had been playing well all event, and I felt that this would be one of the toughest pairings. I managed to win a fairly nice King’s Indian though! Afterwards my tournament felt more or less in control.

You also got the gold in the blitz
That was fun! After drawing my main rival in the sixth round of blitz, I ended up losing a critical game (ironically, to my opponent from the classical round earlier that day) and I thought it was over. But then my main rival also lost a game, which allowed me to tie for first (but this time, win on tiebreaks!). It was quite nice to play blitz on the wooden boards :)

Why did you decide to go to Italy
The tournament looked interesting and fit well with my schedule. The organizer Andrea Rebeggianni invited me to play

One of your main activities is ChessDojo. How is ChessDojo doing?
Dojo is doing great! Our training site (https://chessdojo.club) has made tremendous improvements lately. Members can now track their ratings, store their games, follow a training plan, join clubs, and take tactical tests all in one app. And more features are coming soon! We are working hard to build the ultimate chess dashboard.

And how is your own personal GM journey these days?
I am still on the way! Of course my rating has tanked post-pandemic, but I am still motivated and dreaming about the GM title. Recently I started blogging about my training and tournaments, which folks can read about on hellokostya.substack.com. The blog has quenched my thirst for creative expression and will hopefully keep me focused on my goal of GM. My main challenge is that I have many projects to work on outside of my own chess, so over the next several months I will need to dedicate ample time for training, and I hope to use the Dojo site to track my activity. Nevertheless I am optimistic, as there is always plenty to do :)

Rose Atwell sets her standards high and says, ” I really hope that I can be a part of the [Olympic] team in 2 years for the Chess Olympiad 2026.” Read the full interview with the 2024 US Chess Championship wild card to find out how she prepares for the event, what are her goals, at which tournaments you can follow her, who is her role model and what she does in her free time.

More: 2024 US Chess Championship / 2024 US Women Chess Championship / US Chess Championship live / US Women Chess Championship live Follow: Rose Atwell on Twitter/X

You are the wildcard of the Women section of the 2024 US Chess Championship 2024. What does participating in this event mean for you?

I started playing tournament chess in 2017, and ever since then, I’ve always watched the US Women’s Championship.  And every year, I’ve imagined what it must feel like to play in the event.  And this year, I get my chance!  Needless to say, it’s a dream come true.  

And I feel very lucky to have been invited.  US Chess could have easily chosen someone else as the wildcard.  By next year’s event, I hope to be higher rated so that I can qualify more easily by rating and not need the wildcard status.   

How are you preparing for the top US event of the year?

Over the past few weeks since I received the invitation, I’ve spent extra time on my openings and calculation.  I’m used to working on chess a lot, but recently my motivation level has been even higher than usual. 

Carrisa Yip just won the gold medal on board 2 at the Chess Olympiad, while Alice Lee was silver on board 4. Practically the whole US team from the Olympiad plays at the the Us Chess Champs. Does that elevate the event to another level?

Yeah, the US Women did very well at the Olympiad this year. And I really hope that I can be a part of the team in 2 years for the next Olympiad. A good way for me to show that I deserve to be on the next team would be for me to perform well against the current team at the US Champs.

You are just 15, but you are already an FM and chasing the IM title. Can you share your roadmap/plan for getting there?

My goal for 2025 is to get the IM title.  I still have zero IM norms and I also need to gain a lot of FIDE rating.  But I think I will be playing in one or two strong tournaments each month, so if I play well, then I should be able to meet the requirements for IM pretty quickly.    

What are your next events in the calendar?

In November I’ll be in Charlotte, North Carolina for an IM norm event and also for the 2024 US Chess Masters.  I’ve never been to the Charlotte Chess Club before and I’m definitely looking forward to it. 

Who is your role model in chess?

Judit Polgar

In your free time, what do you like to do besides chess?

When I’m not studying chess, I enjoy reading, running, working in the garden, and playing with my 2 little brothers.

Today we had the pleasure to speak to German board 3, WGM Josefine Heinemann. She spoke about the Olympiad, her team, Budapest, youth and women chess in Germany, future tournaments and more.

Visit: Official website / Josefine Heinemann on Twitter / Photo: Paul Meier-Dunker

The Chess Olympiad just finished. You managed to score 5,5/9, losing just two game along the way. Are you happy with your performance?

Performance-wise my result was okay, but as I lost some important points in key matches I am quite unhappy with my result. The losses against Mongolia and Armenia were both unnecessary and because of those our team drew and lost the two matches. 

All news about the Olympiad / Final standings women section

The German team was one of the first to arrive in Budapest. Was this part of your preparation for the event?

We usually try to arrive earlier to team events to have a small training camp to get into shape. We have almost no professionals on the team so it is very nice to arrive a bit early, forget about work and focus solely on the tournament. We don’t train a ton during those days, usually just a few hours in the afternoon, and use the remaining day to get some good rest.

This was your second Olympiad. How would you compare the organization in Budapest to your previous experience?

Before the tournament there were a lot of organisational problems, e.g. we were forced to stay in two different hotels with our teams. But during the tournament from my point of view everything went fine. The playing hall was nice, drinks and some snacks were provided and we didn’t face further issues. In India the overall organisation was better for sure, but as long as the playing conditions are good, I am usually happy, and that was the case.

Elisabeth was the star of the team. A few words about her?

Elisabeth is a very strong player and showed it again in this tournament. She started with an insane amount of wins, that helped us score quite a few match victories. Unfortunately in the end she didn’t win as much(opponents of course also got stronger), but still she showed clearly the best result of the team and it was nice to see that she was in good shape. And by winning the silver medal on her board she gave us something to celebrate!

See: Board medals from Women Chess Olympiad 2024

You were a youth chess champion of Germany for Girls U18. Do you think enough is done for youth chess in the country? If you can improve one thing, what would it be?

I think the support for chess in our country improved a lot over the past 10 years, but it could still be improved. I think if I could change only one thing it would be the perception of chess – in Germany it is wildly regarded as just a hobby, not a career option. I think that’s a pity because if you tell very talented children from a very young age that becoming a professional player is “stupid” and it is much better to get a normal job, most of them will not even try it. Like that we spoil a lot of talent. Of course in the end everybody needs to decide for themselves if being a chess professional is something to strive for, but I would like it if as a society we would show a little less prejudice.

And how about the state of Women Chess in Germany?

I guess here my answer is very similar to the last  one. The situation improved a lot in the past 10 years, but it could still improve further. In 2023 Germany held (for the first time ever!) one leg of the Women’s Grand Prix Series and therefore got a wildcard. It was possible due to the sponsor of our women’s team Roman Krulich. This definitly helped visibility of German women in chess, but one event obviously is not enough. I think many of our players are trying their part on social media to improve our visibility as a team and as individuals, but it is important that German media(especially chess websites) and the federation do the same. Sometimes it feels like we don’t exist and only events with the guys get covered. Of course, I hope in the near future we can add some successes, so that we force people to follow us more :-).

What are your upcoming events?

I am planning to play an open tournament in Annemasse in October and a round-robin tournament in Budapest in November. Afterwards I would like to play World Rapid and Blitz championships, but I will decide about that once regulations are published.

Any last words?

I know a lot of people followed us during the Olympiad and were routing for us and I would like to thank all of them. I know our result was disappointing, but we will try our best to come back stronger! Also I want to thank Roman Krulich once more, for sponsoring our team and also Chessbase for providing Engines during the tournament, as those are essential to our preperation.

More about Chess Olympaid 2024 : Chess Olympiad 2024 live / Participants open / Participants women / All news about Chess Olympiad 2024

Interview with Fabiano Caruana

Hello, Andreea! You have just achieved 9,0/9! Impressive result, how does it feel to have such a dominant win?

It feels a bit weird because on paper 9/9 sounds crazy but in real life I just took it game by game and it did not seem insurmountable. I’m obviously really happy for the result itself but most importantly I am proud of the quality of my games that certainly reflects in the score !

When did you realize you can go for a perfect score?

After round 7 I thought “you know what, this is beginning to look like something !” and from then on 9/9 became the clear objective just because it looked super cool and also because I could clearly brag about it like I’m doing it right now :)

Where did you draw inspiration from? We all remember the 8,0/8 Olympiad start of Gukesh or the performance of Fabiano Caruana at the Sinquefield Cup

Yes, I did indeed remember those two out-of-the-world performances. They are obviously more significant than mine but nonetheless it is extremely flattering to be even remotely associated with those! As a matter of fact, I tagged Fabi in my post on X and he congratulated me, as well as Susan Polgar. This certainly adds credit to my achievement !

71 ELO points! This is also a great addition to the trophy and the victory. What are your next goals

Yes I am quite pleased to return to a rating not far from my peak (2373). It looks like I will be over 2350+ on the next rating list, which will also bring me closer to the top on the French Women’s rating list. My next goal is certainly to become an IM since I already have one norm and the rating is not so far from 2400. I would also really enjoy qualifying for the World Cup one day but for that I have to pump up my rating. 

Which is the next tournament where you will play?

I will play in the Romanian league before the new rating kicks in so that will be another occasion for me to harvest some rating hopefully ! And then I have a team in the European Club Cup, so that shall be exciting as well !

I am actually willing to play more leagues so if you’re looking for a 2350+ female player, I am your woman !

The Chess Olympiad 2024 is coming. Your prediction for medalists in the open and women sections?

I will try not to be biased for this question since I am rooting both for France and Romania. There is actually a difference between who I want to win and who I think will win realistically speaking. Let’s go for the realistic predictions: in the women’s section, I think China will clinch the title. Poland 2nd and India 3rd. In the open section, I’m going to go with India 1st, Uzbekistan 2nd and the US as 3rd. If France or Romania were to get on the podium, that would be fantastic though !

More about Chess Olympaid 2024 : Live blog / Participants open / Participants women / All news about Chess Olympiad 2024

Photo credit: French Chess Federation

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