The top teams could rest the likes of GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Anish Giri, and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus while still scoring 6-0 clean sweeps in round one of the 41st European Chess Club Cup in Budva, Montenegro. GM Nils Grandelius was one of the few stars to fall, to 55-year-old Serbian CM Slobodan Filipovic, but the Swedish number-one's team Novy Bor Chess Club still won 5-1.

On paper, the story was similar in the 30th European Women's Chess Club Cup, but the 3.5-0.5 victory for defending champion Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo over the young English team of She Plays To Win Lionesses A was incredibly hard-fought. WFM Anusha Subramanian held chess legend GM Pia Cramling to a draw, while the top-rated women's player in the event, GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, only overcame 11-year-old WGM-elect Bodhana Sivanandan in 77 moves.  

Round two is on Sunday, October 18, starting at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.

2026 European Club Cup Begins

The European Chess Club Cup was first held in 1956 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), and has been a regular event since 1976, an annual event since 1992, and saw the inclusion of a women's tournament from 1996 onward. It's a seven-round Swiss team event, with six players per team (plus two reserves) in the Open, and four players (plus one reserve) in the Women's. 

The short format, running Saturday, October 17 to Friday, October 23, means it's a sprint, with GM David Navara saying after his round-one win: "Of course it's not easy here, because there are many teams, and with seven rounds it’s a bit random—which can be both good and bad for us—so we will see!"

With seven rounds it's a bit random—which can be both good and bad for us—so we will see!

—David Navara (Novy Bor Chess Club)

Many teams is no exaggeration, since there are as many as 107 in the Open and 22 in the Women's, with players ranging from the world elite to regular club players—with commentator GM Simon Williams noting that both local bars near the venue ran out of beer on the eve of the tournament.

There's €40,000 in prize money at stake for the top teams, however, who have gathered together some of the world's best players. Defending champion SuperChess Romania was led by GM Gukesh Dommaraju in 2025, but this year features the world number-five—Olympiad star and newly-engaged Abdusattorov!

Congratulations to Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Sevinch Mavlonova on their engagement! ❤️

— chess24 ( @chess24com) October 4, 2026

Erdogmus, the highest-rated 15-year-old of all time, will be another player to watch, and his Turkish team of Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports Club, which also features Giri, GM Amin Tabatabaei, and GM Richard Rapport, is the top seed for a second year in a row (in 2025 they had to settle for fourth place). Second-seeded Alkaloid is topped by GMs Wei Yi and Arjun Erigaisi, who both played in round one. 

The stakes are higher this year, since the top four teams will qualify for a new eight-team event, the €300,000 European Chess Super League to be held in Bucharest, Romania on February 2-10, 2027. 

With the recent sponsorship agreements signed, ECU is almost doubling its budget for 2027 and launching an elite event, the European Chess Super League, with the participation of traditional clubs in Europe and beyond. The European Chess Super League is based on competitive criteria, as at least five clubs will qualify from the European Club Cup 2026 in Budva, Montenegro. #EliteChess #clubs #sports #bucharestt #superfoundation

— European Chess Union ( @ECUonline) October 4, 2026

The women's lineup in Budva is also strong, with three 2500+ players, including women's number-five Goryachkina, number-nine GM Koneru Humpy, and number-10 IM Polina Shuvalova.

The Swiss format means the favorites get opposition they're expected to dominate in round one, and that's largely what happened. 

Open: Favorites Flex Their Muscles

There was predictable carnage in the top-three matches, with all the favorites winning 6-0.

There were many stories along the way, however, including 59-year-old FM Dave Ledger, one of three Ledger brothers on the Blackthorne team, playing, on GM Williams' recommendation, the Kilkenny Gambit with 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4?! against 17-year-old GM Ediz Gurel. He even played it with GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, a player synonymous with early g4s, sitting next to him.

Dave Ledger hits Ediz Gurel with the Kilkenny Gambit! https://t.co/zSZqAnNmIa https://t.co/wo3liSzB4y

— chess24 ( @chess24com) October 17, 2026

The Turkish youngster commented: "I knew my opponent was an aggressive player, I saw some of his games. I wasn’t expecting something this aggressive on move two, but it was an interesting game!"

Perhaps inevitably, Black won swiftly, but getting your grandmaster opponent to think for almost seven minutes after move two is also an achievement!

Among the 6-0 wins was IM Peter Roberson engaging in a tactical battle with Arjun which brought back memories of the Indian star's round-one loss at the Olympiad. This time, however, Roberson cracked in time trouble and Arjun pounced to win his opponent's queen.

The first non-win for a player in a team of one of the favorites was GM Ivan Sokolov being held to a draw by 500-point-lower-rated Bogi Palsson of Norway, though in fact it was a great escape for the Dutch GM. The one top player not to escape was Swedish number-one Grandelius, who slipped below 2600 for the first time in a decade on the live rating list after losing to 450-point-lower-rated Filipovic. The Serbian CM perfectly ground out an endgame win after Grandelius played inaccurately in time trouble.

That's just the start of the upsets, however, while every round the tournament will get tougher. 

Women: Lionesses Test Favorites

The women's event also saw the favorites dominate, though it's notable that 18th seed Velikova Chess Club held seventh seed Crvena Zvezda to a 2-2 draw. 

Perhaps the most memorable match, however, was at the very top.

Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo is favorite to defend their title and began against 12th seed She Plays To Win Lionesses A, a team that made headlines recently for needing to recruit a man—they chose none other than world number-11 Giri—to be eligible to play in the top division of the Four Nations Chess League.

Hugely proud of @SPTWchess Lionesses A team making their 4NCL Division 1 Debut, with @anishgiri joining in support of the She Plays To Win mission♟️ Eight players. One vision. One team. Come join the movement to give more girls the best opening move in life #AnishGiri https://t.co/iErxp5lddm

— She Plays To Win ( @SPTWchess) October 12, 2026

In Budva, they boasted an incredibly young lineup, and fought like lionesses against their illustrious opponents. 

Although IM Stavroula Tsolakidou scored an impressive win, things weren't so easy elsewhere. 63-year-old Cramling was held to a draw by teenage rising star Subramanian, who found an impressive way to avoid suffering in a pawn-down endgame.

That meant the English team was trailing 1.5-0.5, but 11-year-old Sivanandan, who got a taste for playing first board at the Olympiad, was fighting to stay alive against former Women's World Championship Challenger Goryachkina, while GM Elisabeth Paehtz's position against another teenager, WFM Elis Dicen, was good but unstable. The match outcome wasn't clear, although the games stretched into the fifth hour of play. 

In the end, however, the favorites came out on top. Sivanandan defended with incredible tenacity, but lost her way toward the end.

Meanwhile Paehtz had simplified her position to get the draw that would likely ensure match victory—and got the bonus of squeezing out a win to wrap up a 3.5-0.5 win.

The difference in the women's event is that, with just 22 teams, things are going to get tougher much faster. In round two, Cercle d'Echecs already faces the number-five seed Odlar Yurdu, a team of five IMs from Azerbaijan led by IM Ulviyya Fataliyeva. We can already expect to see Humpy enter the fray.