USA Completes the Threepeat at FIDE World Senior Team Championships

Both official USA teams at the closing ceremony (Photo by Lawrence Cohen)

USA won the 2025 FIDE World Senior Team Championships ahead of Italy on tiebreaks in the 50+ section, and USA Women earned the 50+ bronze. Today’s article focuses on USA’s team gold. GM Alexander Shabalov — the reigning World Senior Champion — also won an individual gold medal for his undefeated 6½/8 performance on board 3.

Tomorrow, team member WIM Alexey Root will provide a report (and some games) recapping USA Women’s bronze medal performance.

Team USA (from left): Novikov, Rachels, Kaidanov, Ehlvest, and Shabalov (Photo by Alexey Root)

Earlier this month, talk of a Kansas City Chiefs “threepeat” (and its trademark!) was dominating the headlines in the leadup to Superbowl LIX. Headed into this year’s championship, one of the biggest questions was whether the USA 50+ team would fare better than the Chiefs in its threepeat quest.

After being held to a tie in two of its first four matches, USA was going to have to play a bit of catch-up. At this point, both Italy and Kazakhstan were still 4/4.

From there, USA won four of its final five matches, ultimately winning gold on tiebreaks ahead of Italy. Both teams finished with six wins and three ties, including in their round 7 encounter. Kazakhstan finished a half-point behind in bronze, thanks to a 6th-round loss to USA and a last-round tie against England 1.

In the final round before the reset day, USA defeated Czech Republic 2½–1½ thanks to Shabalov’s victory on board two.

Equally important was GM Jaan Ehlvest’s draw on the top board from a shaky position in the middlegame, with the piece-down draw eventually being enough to clinch an important team victory.

After the rest day, USA faced Kazakhstan in what ended up being the tournament’s turning point. After a tie between Italy and Kazakhstan in round 5, USA was only a half-point behind the leading pack. An electric 3½–½ victory for the Americans was highlighted by some gratifying tactics:

With Italy and Slovakia tying their match, USA (and England 1) managed to join the leaders with 5/6 scores. With USA paired against Italy, there was a chance to dispatch of a key rival. With Shabalov outplaying his opponent from a balanced position, USA was in good position to do just this:

With Ehlvest and GM Igor Novikov drawing their games on the first and fourth boards, respectively, the question came down to GM Gregory Kaidanov’s board. After battling back from a difficult position in the opening, Kaidanov managed to have significant drawing chances in a piece-down endgame, until…

With Slovakia and England 1 also tying their match, Kazakhstan was able to round out the pack of five leaders going into the final two rounds. In round 8, Italy defeated Iceland 2½–1½ and Kazakhstan disposed of Slovakia 3–1.

On the top board, it was up to England 1 and USA to vie for a third spot atop the standings. This was not quite a must-win match for either team, but it was close. Yet, with draws on the top two boards and IM Stuart Rachels also shaking hands peacefully with England 1’s GM John Emms, it all came down to Novikov.

For Wednesday’s final round, each of USA, Kazakhstan, and Italy could guarantee a share of first with a win. But who would get the gold? The main tiebreaker would be total points scored, and, in this category, Kazakhstan led USA, but USA led Italy. So, all the Americans could do was win their match against the German team Confluentia and let the rest shake out.

We return to Ehlvest and Shabalov:

With Kaidanov being upset by IM Georg Seul, Ehlvest and Shabalov’s aggressive play proved necessary in providing USA with a 2½–1½ victory. Italy won by the same score against Hungary, meaning that the Italians did not improve on their tiebreaker deficit against USA.

But, with neither USA nor Italy managing to close the gap with Kazakhstan’s leading tiebreaker, a victory over England 1 would deliver Kazakhstan the gold. But with English grandmasters Michael Adams and Stuart Conquest winning their games, Kazakhstan had to settle for bronze, while both the Americans and Italians owe England 1 a nice meal.