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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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Editor: Dr Tim Harding |
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© Dr Tim Harding
Last modified:
19 April 2026
For more information about chess for over-50s, please see our Seniors calendar. Newcomers to 50+ chess should read our Seniors introduction page. We also have pages for specific British Seniors and Irish Seniors news.
Play starts this afternoon in the resort of Durres in Albania, where the 2026 World Senior Team Championships are being contested over nine rounds from the 19th to the 27th of April.
There are two tournaments (50 and 65+) for teams of four with an optional reserve player. There are separate awards for the top all-female teams in each section.
This page will report on the event every day; other senior news remains on the usual page.
Games start each day at 3pm local time, except for the final round which commences an hour earlier. We expect that Lichess and other sites will broadcast a selection of the top games, usually with a delay of a few minutes.
The definitive lists of team entries can be found on chess-results. (For the 65+ section click on the link there to the other tab.)
Two strong Russian teams (one male and one female) have been entered for the 65+ championship although they will play under the FIDE flag and the team name is FIDE. No Russian teams were entered for the 50+ tournament.
There are 36 teams in the 50+ and 54 in the 65+. The even numbers are good news as it mjeans there are no byes for a change,
In the 50+ championship, the usual England-USA rivalry will be renewed. The American are the holders and only failed once to take gold since they started competing in this event. Some other strong national teams will also try to make it dificult for the USA which is surely not the most popular nation on Earth right now.
In fact last year (in Prague) England had their worst ever result and only finished fourth in the 50+ championship although they did manage to retain the 65+ title, so they will be hoping for improvement this year.
Kazakhstan, Italy and Iceland are the other teams most likely to contest the podium positions in the 50+ but there are other teams with high-rated individuals capable of causing upsets.
The USA, defending champions in the 50+, have declared a team consisting of four GMs (led by Jaan Ehlvest) and one IM. England-1 are second seeds with an all-GM squad headed by Michael Adams, who is by far the highest-rated individual player.
There are also strong-looking teams entered from Kazakhstan, Italy, Iceland, North Macedonia (Alkaloid chess club), Hungary, and Oslo (headed by GM Simen Agdestein). Other non-European teams are entered from Brazil (who hope to host next year and have two teams), Canada (Quebec and Toronto) and South Africa, as well as a US women's team and the Jhunjhnuwala brothers, also from America.
The 50+ section also includes four all-female teams competing for thr women's medals; they are from England, USA, the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan. A high-rated Chinese women's team had been entered earlier but appears now to have withdrawn.
There are six English teams of widely varying strengths in the 50+ (including the women's squad), two Scottish teams and one each from Guernsey, Ireland and Wales.
The highest-seeded team in the 65+ (unless there are last-minute changes) will be the German club team Lasker Schachstiftung (headed by GM Artur Jussupow) who have four GMs plus a strong reserve in Dr Gerhard Koehler who won the German 65+ championship acouple of years ago.
Second seeds will probably be England-1 who have GMs John Nunn, Tony Kosten and Jonathan Mestel along with IMs Paul Littlewood and Peter Large who usually does very well in these events. Those are the only teams with a rating average over 2400.
The teams with an expected rating average in the 2300s are Iceland, Montenegro, "FIDE" and France with Israel on 2298.
This section includes a total of six English teams, along with two from Ireland and one each from Scotland and Wales. As usual, the England-=2 team in both sections is strong.
The provisional line-up for the Russian male team has changed because GM Yuri Balashov has been replaced on top board by Sergey Janovsky who is much less well known. The others are expected to be GM Alexander Raetsky, IM Evgenij Kalegin, IM Alexey Gorbatov and an untitled reserve, Vladimir Ponfilenok.
Their women's team consists of five players who have been competing regularly in World Senior individual championships: WGM Galina Strutinskaia, WGM Tatiana Bogumil, WGM Elena Fatalibekova, WIM Larisa Khropova and WIM Natalia Titorenko.
That team is very likely to win the women's gold medals. The other all-female teams are representing Germany, Latvia and Poland who are regulars in this event.
We also intend to keep our British seniors and Irish seniors pages updated during this event, although there are so many teams from these islands that we probably cannot mention them all very often.
Back to our Seniors introduction page