Team USA Leads World Senior Team Championship Entering Second Half

With five rounds in the books at the 2026 World Senior Team Chess Championship, Team USA has scored 4½/5 points and shares the lead — with the Italian team it drew in Round 4 — in the 50+ section. Held in Durres, Albania, from April 19 through 28, the Americans are looking for their fourth consecutive team title after completing the “three-peat” last year.

The USA Women’s team is currently on an even 2½/5 score, putting it a half-point behind the Czech Republic and Kazakhstan women’s teams. Overall, 36 teams (including four women’s teams) are competing in the 50+ section.

Play resumes on Saturday, April 25 for Round 6 of the nine-round event, with the broadcast beginning at 8:15 a.m. CDT. Games can be followed on Lichess and Chess.com.

From left: Shabalov, Kaidanov, Novikov, and Rachels. (Photo courtesy Olga Sagalchik)

Team USA decided to run last year’s team back this year, with GMs Jaan Ehlvest, Alexander Shabalov, Gregory Kaidanov, and Igor Novikov on Boards 1-4, respectively, and IM Stuart Rachels as the alternate.

Standing, from left: Sagalchik, Tsodikova, Belakovskaia. Sitting: Marinello and Jezierska. (Photo couretsy of the subjects)

Four players from last year’s bronze-winning USA Women’s team are back this year, including WGM Anjelina Belakovskaia on Board 1 and reigning U.S. Senior Women’s champion WFM Natalia Tsodikova on Board 2. The one new face — WIM Beatriz Marinello — is on Board 3, while WFM Olga Sagalchik is on Board 4 and WFM Ivona Jezierska is the alternate. (Note: "new" is relative, as Marinello played on the 2024 team. Thanks to Dr. Alexey Root, WIM for the correction)

Team USA rushed out to a hot 3/3 start with match wins against a French team (Philidor Brothers), England-2, and North Macedonia’s Alkaloid Chess Club. Alkaloid — which currently sits in third place with a 4/5 score — was Team USA’s first exposure to grandmaster opposition, but the Americans won 3–1 with victories on the top and bottom boards by Ehlvest and Rachels, respectively. Ehlvest’s interesting victory — including an exciting rook sac that didn’t make it to the board — is annotated below:

Against Italy in Round 4, all games ended peacefully. But both players with the white pieces had chances to push for more. Still, by not taking any unnecessary risk, the team remains in a great position entering the final rounds.

In Round 5, USA faced a strong England-1 team featuring GM Michael Adams on Board 1 and strong GMs Mark Hebden and John Emms on Boards 3 and 4. Ehlvest’s duel against Adams ended peacefully, as did Shabalov’s game against GM Daniel Gormally on Board 2, meaning the bottom boards decided the match.

On Board 3, Kaidanov scored a fine win when Hebden opted for a suboptimal endgame out of a complex position.

In the longest game of the round, the question was whether Novikov could hold the pawn-down opposite-colored bishop endgame against Emms. For a long time, it looked like he would. Then it looked like he wouldn’t. But the path to victory was, to put it mildly, far from obvious, and Emms failed to find the key subtlety on move 61, allowing Novikov to clinch the match 2½–1½ with the draw.

Team USA Women got off to a 3–1 victory over England-5 featuring wins from Tsodikova, Marinello, and Jezierska. Then, in a tough match-up against Hungary (Team USA’s Round 6 opponent), Belakovskaia and Sagalchik each managed to hold their grandmaster opponents to draws, but unfortunately wins for the two other Hungarians gave them a 3–1 victory.

In Round 3, USA Women lost 3–1 to the Kazakhstan Women’s team that is currently leading the event. After bouncing back with a 2½–1½ victory over South Africa, they then faced another women’s team in Round 4, drawing England Women 2–2.

Only the top few boards are being broadcast live for this event, but after it concludes, we hope to share games from USA Women as well.

US Chess sponsored both Team USA and Team USA Women’s for this event. Three additional American teams are competing: the Jhunjhnuwala brothers of Team USA – Six Brothers in the 50+ section and two teams in the 65+ section. Six Brothers is currently 2/5 with a win over England-5 and draws against Czech Republic and Ireland. In the 65+ section, Team USA-1 is 1/5 with two draws, and Team USA-2 is 1½/5 with a win over Finland-4 and a draw against USA-1.

More photos can be found on the organizer's Facebook page.