Vlad Ghita
@vlad_chess
FIDE-certified National Arbiter and National Instructor. Freelancer - check my page: https://vladchess.com/
Calling all Russians terrorists, but on the other hand sleeping with the FIDE President's son is some weird mental gymnastics. If you guess who this is, you receive 10,000 Monopoly dollars. Hint: A traitor to all Ukrainian people. Literally in bed with the enemy.
The European Chess Union (ECU) has reviewed the decision made at the Online FIDE Council Meeting held on July 18, 2025, regarding the participation of Russian National Team in the 2025 Women’s World Team Championship and has made the following statement: europechess.org/ecu-statement-…
Goa or New Delhi strong contenders from what I hear. *It had been known for a while that the World Cup would be organized in India this year.
🚨 BREAKING: 2025 FIDE World Cup to take place in India from October 30, 2025 to November 27, 2025!
Not only ratings are deflated it seems, also the tires of KLM aircraft now 😂
Was flying to Vegas for freestyle chess and Flight got cancelled after boarding the aircraft @KLM ….
Based on the diagram, which one of these 3 do you think most accurately reflects the *true distribution* of chess strength among OTB players? Please reply directly underneath (or quote tweet)

FIDE Chess Rating revisited - article by @vlad_chess , with insights by @dsmerdon, @gutsy_gambit, and more chessdom.com/fide-chess-rat…
News broken by yours truly 💪 Must have made an impact on Buettner at Grenke, because the qualification paths are completely arcane to me...
UPDATE: Bibisara Assaubayeva appears to have dropped out of the World Cup to play in the Freestyle Grand Slam instead! 🤯 #chess #womeninchess
It is nice to have an endorsement from a leading economist/statistician and GM. This prompted me to take a look at the current situation (June 2025). Plotted the top 15 overrated/underrated countries. If this doesn't bother players or FIDE managers...we are screwed.
Yeh I don't have solutions either. Adjusted FIDE fees might help. I think the main point is that most people don't realise this problem is an actual thing, which Vlad has pretty convincingly shown over multiple posts.
One of the most dangerous opens to play. It's practically an Elo graveyard, guaranteed -50 even for competent players in the B or C groups.
The massive Cesme Open starts today in Türkiye 🇹🇷 It features 1195 players and multiple side events, including a simul with Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus chessdom.com/cesme-open-202… @TurkishChess @fatoshkoc @AhmetDSatranc @sabopasha
"Growing the game" can be attributed to many factors, but the chief ingredients are probably the pandemic, followed by the Netflix show, and then by content creators popularizing chess. On track to eclipse 3.5M standard games played by the end of 2025. Source: FIDE monthly data

FIDE ratings deflation is still an ongoing problem and will continue to propagate through the system. I think it's time to consider fixing it with bigger measures than last year...@FIDE_chess

Carlos Alcaraz’s latest ad for @itau ♟️🎾 Not many know this, but he loves chess: 🇪🇸 “I love chess. Having to concentrate, to play against someone else, strategy—having to think ahead. I think all of that is very similar to the tennis court.”
Compare the distribution of active players in each elo tier in 2015 vs 2025. We can clearly see how the number of players in the upper tiers (>2000) has decreased.
This reflects incredibly poorly on the entire community of chess content creators. One guy pursuing profits at all cost (Jonas van Dael aka Pegasus Chess). 40k Youtube subscribers being gaslit to think this guy knows anything about chess. All his videos are pure clickbait.
Even though the competition for the "Chess Grifter of the Year" is constantly increasing, it will take some time to dethrone PegasusChess, a.k.a. a guy who sells courses despite having multiple accounts banned for cheating. reddit.com/r/chess/commen… reddit.com/r/chess/commen… 1/5
How to select chess tournaments? New article dropped (if you found it useful and ♥️ the blog, more people will see it) lichess.org/@/Vlad_G92/blo… #chess
A dark horse candidate emerging from Canada. She is a bit volatile in her TPRs but certainly seems to have no issue playing against men in strong opens. To be followed with great interest during the upcoming years.
Maili-Jade Ouellet's final IM norm certificate! 🇨🇦👏👏👏 #chess #womeninchess
Tarjei is getting cooked so often on this app, I am never deleting it...
It's a joke now. Journalism.
Been tinkering a bit with my coaching philosophy in chess lately. It looks like game modes such as Puzzle Rush or Puzzle Storm are underrated as far as building quick pattern recognition and I've been recommending it as a core supplement to almost all players U1600. Thoughts?
JUST WON THE 1ST VIGEVANO INTERNATIONAL!! 🥇 6.5/7!! 🏆 BENVENUTO AL DOJO! 🥋