Bluebaum 1st Player To Win European Championship Twice
GM Matthias Bluebaum is the first player to win the European Chess Championship two times. He previously won gold in 2022 and is also the only German to top the event in its 25-year history. He finished in a three-way tie on 8.5/11 with GMs Frederik Svane and Maxim Rodshtein but had the best tiebreaks.
His countryman Svane finished second and Rodshtein finished third, both players winning on demand in the final round. 20 players will qualify for the 2025 FIDE World Cup, which is part of the world championship cycle.
Final Standings | Top 20
| # | Title | Name | FED | Rtg | Pts. | rtg+/- |
| 1 | GM | Bluebaum, Matthias | 2643 | 8.5 | 17 | |
| 2 | GM | Svane, Frederik | 2654 | 8.5 | 14.2 | |
| 3 | GM | Rodshtein, Maxim | 2623 | 8.5 | 16.9 | |
| 4 | GM | Yuffa, Daniil | 2654 | 8 | 13.7 | |
| 5 | GM | Gledura, Benjamin | 2658 | 8 | 9 | |
| 6 | GM | Tari, Aryan | 2621 | 8 | 15 | |
| 7 | GM | Sargissian, Gabriel | 2628 | 8 | 12.6 | |
| 8 | GM | Abasov, Nijat | 2612 | 8 | 7.8 | |
| 9 | GM | Erdogmus, Yagiz Kaan | 2605 | 8 | 12.7 | |
| 10 | GM | Gurel, Ediz | 2620 | 8 | 4.3 | |
| 11 | GM | Kantor, Gergely | 2563 | 8 | 19.9 | |
| 12 | IM | Samadov, Read | 2502 | 8 | 18.8 | |
| 13 | GM | Jobava, Baadur | 2578 | 7.5 | 19.7 | |
| 14 | GM | Van Foreest, Jorden | 2676 | 7.5 | 3 | |
| 15 | GM | Kourkoulos-Arditis, Stamatis | 2580 | 7.5 | 18 | |
| 16 | GM | Navara, David | 2663 | 7.5 | 2.7 | |
| 17 | GM | Hovhannisyan, Robert | 2630 | 7.5 | 4,9 | |
| 18 | GM | Sargsyan, Shant | 2666 | 7.5 | -0.1 | |
| 19 | GM | Lagarde, Maxime | 2615 | 7.5 | 6.9 | |
| 20 | GM | Velten, Paul | 2515 | 7.5 | 24.8 |
It's the first time the open championship has been held in Romania, though the women's championship has been held there twice. The tournament was an 11-round Swiss and took place from March 15 to 26, held in Eforie Nord, a town and holiday resort on the shore of the Black Sea.
375 players, representing 40 European countries, participated—285 were titled and 100 were grandmasters. On top of the €100,000 prize fund, players competed for spots in the upcoming FIDE World Cup. The top three finishers of that tournament will qualify for the 2026 Candidates Tournament. You can see the monetary prizes below.
GM Daniil Yuffa dominated the first half of the tournament and had chances to finish in the gold even in the final round, when both he and Bluebaum co-led on 8/10. Yuffa was the last player on a perfect score after four rounds, and then he won again in round five against GM Jorden van Foreest. It was still a tremendous tournament, and he lost only to the top two finishers; a half-point more was all he needed.
Top chess players often say that a little bit of luck is needed to win a tournament—some things just have to go right—and Yuffa's big, lucky moment came in that round-five game against Van Foreest. Yuffa gambited a pawn early, but his initiative came up short, and he was in an endgame a clear pawn down. Van Foreest, however, made a blunder he'll be happy to forget.
Round seven was the turning point. Bluebaum, who was one of 11 players trailing the leader by half a point, delivered Yuffa's first loss.
The loss was a bit self-inflicted, as Yuffa went for a combination that didn't work. 18...Rxc4? is the kind of move that leads to a brilliancy, if not for the elegant defense 22.Nc6! down the line—all of which was played. Bluebaum defended the attack and brought Yuffa back down to earth.
Compared to Yuffa, Bluebaum's tournament was much more solid, and he didn't suffer a single loss. He took the lead for the first time after round nine when he defeated GM Baadur Jobava.
26.Re6! is a powerful colinear move, and it's a bit surprising that Black is already lost. Bluebaum himself exclaimed "Wow!" in the interview when the engine pointed this out. Bluebaum won a pawn and converted the advantage flawlessly.
That was Jobava's only loss, by the way, and he still had a great tournament—finishing on 7.5/11 and gaining 20 points. You can listen to Bluebaum's interview about the game in the video below.
Bluebaum's draws in the final two rounds (his last game against GM Nijat Abasov was just five moves long) were enough to win the event, though this was in large part due to Svane defeating Yuffa in round 11. His countryman finished with the same record: six wins, zero losses, and five draws.
Svane was able to join the three-way tie only by winning his last two games. The last, critical win against Yuffa in a Winawer French was wild and well-deserved when Svane declined a threefold repetition by sacrificing a pawn. But equally as crazy is his win against GM Szymon Gumularz the round before, which he described as "so complicated... I was lucky I did not blunder anything."
You can listen to Svane's game analysis in the video below as well.
Rodshtein, in third, also finished with six wins and five draws. One of his most exciting games was an exhilarating time scramble against GM Gleb Dudin in round eight. It's the least "accurate" game in this report, by far. Dudin made several moves on one or two seconds, and in the frenzy of mutual blunders it was he who made the last mistake.
Rodshtein managed to beat the fourth seed on demand in the last round to slip into the three-way tie.
You can check out his thoughts after the game against Dudin:
Nine players are tied on eight points, and three of them are under 18 years old. Teenage GMs Ediz Gurel and Yagiz Erdogmus—Turkish numbers one and two—remind us that Turkiye's strength is growing.
IM Read Samadov of Azerbaijan—on the same number of points—was the only international master in the top-46. That being said, his rating was already 2502 and he'll gain another 19 from this event.
There's more action starting up soon, as the European Women's Championship 2025 kicks off on March 31 in Rhodes, Greece.
How to rewatch?
You can rewatch the event on the European Chess Union's YouTube channel. You can also check out the games on our dedicated events page.
GM Alojzije Jankovic and WIM Sandra Djukic hosted the broadcast.
The 2025 European Chess Championship took place March 15-26 at the Hotel Europa in Eforie Nord, Romania. The tournament was an 11-round Swiss with a time control of 90 minutes for 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, plus a 30-second increment starting on move one. In addition to a €100,000 prize fund, 20 players also qualify for the 2025 FIDE World Cup.
