The 2025 XTX Markets London Chess Classic
The Elite Group of the 2025 XTX Markets London Chess Classic will take place at the Emirates Stadium, London, between 26th November and 5th December 2025.
The Players
Alireza Firouzja
Rating: 2762
World Ranking: 6
Alireza Firouzja burst onto the chess scene in 2016 by winning the Iranian Chess Championship aged just twelve. The grandmaster title soon followed after which Alireza continued his climb to the world’s elite, becoming one of only sixteen players to have ever achieved a FIDE rating above 2800, and the youngest person to do so.
Now a citizen of France, and firmly established in the world’s top ten, Alireza has had considerable tournament success over the past few years: runner-up in the 2019 World Rapid and Blitz in Moscow, winner of the St Louis Rapid and Blitz in 2022, and twice winner of the Sinquefield Cup. These impressive results helped Alireza secure first place in the Grand Chess Tour in both 2022 and 2024.
Alireza’s London Chess Classic career got off to a fine start in 2024, where he joined us for the Super Blitz tournament. He finished in first place ahead of a very strong field that included MVL, Mamedyarov, and Vidit.
The 2025 edition will be Alireza’s first classical chess tournament in the UK. Chess fans can look forward to plenty of fighting chess: Alireza is renowned for his attacking style of play, his flair for sharp, tactical positions, and his willingness to sacrifice material for the initiative. Can the home of Thierry Henry and Arsene Wenger bring success for another great French sportsman? Watch this space to find out.
The youngest of our field of players, 21-year-old Uzbek number one Nodirbek Abdusattorov brings to London a formidable record of tournament success across all time controls. In winning the 2021 World Rapid Chess Championship he became the then youngest ever open world champion in any format of chess. Nodirbek has followed this up with several outstanding performances at Wijk an Zee, including tying for first place in 2024, and victory at the 2024 Prague International Chess Festival, a feat also achieved by no less than three of his competitors in this year’s Classic - Shankland, Firouzja, and Vitiugov.
Nodirbek was a key member of the young Uzbekistan team that took gold at the 44th Olympiad in Chennai, winning the individual silver medal on board one. The following year he achieved his peak world ranking - 4th - and established himself as one of the strongest of the new generation of challengers for the world title.
While British chess fans got a glimpse of Nodirbek at the 2024 Global Chess League, the 2025 XTX Markets London Chess Classic will be their first chance to watch him compete at classical chess on UK soil. An all-round player with a flexible opening repertoire, Nodirbek’s precise calculation and deep positional understanding will make him a tough and much feared opponent.
2025 began with Abdukodir Khusanov becoming the first Uzbek Premier League player. Can his countryman complete the year with success at the Emirates? We will find out on 5th December.
Nodirbek Abdusattorov
Rating: 2750
World Ranking: 12
Pavel Eljanov is a Ukrainian Grandmaster who has had a huge influence on the chess world over the past twenty years. Born in Kharkiv and achieving the GM title aged 18 in 2001, Pavel rose steadily up the world rankings, peaking at world number 6 in 2010. The same year saw him winning both the Astrakhan stage of the FIDE Grand Prix and the Politiken Cup in Copenhagen. Other notable results include becoming a semi-finalist in the 2015 FIDE World Cup, defeating Grischuk and Nakamura along the way, as well as winning the 2016 Isle of Man International, beating Caruana on tie-break.
Alongside these individual successes, Pavel has an outstanding record in the Chess Olympiads, with two team gold medals to his name. He has also supported some of the leading players of the generation, acting as second to Magnus Carlsen in his 2013 World Championship Match against Vishy Anand, and Mariya Muzychuk in her match against Hou Yifan in 2016.
With this wealth of experience behind him, it is no surprise that Pavel is known for his deep opening knowledge and thorough preparation. A flexible repertoire will keep his opponents guessing while his strong positional technique will no doubt cause many problems to his fellow competitors. This is Pavel’s first chess-playing visit to the British Isles for several years – his last visit in 2016 saw him edge out Fabiano Caruana to win the world-class Isle of Man International. The LCC audience will savour the prospect of watching this chess titan strut his stuff at the Emirates.
Pavel Eljanov
Rating: 2657
World Ranking: 59
Despite being a relatively late starter – his first chess tournament was at the ripe old age of 11 – Sam Shankland achieved considerable success at the US and World Junior Championships and quickly established himself as one of the strongest players in the US. After being awarded the Grandmaster title in 2011, Sam entered the world’s top 100 players in 2014, reaching a peak rating of 2731 in 2019.
Sam has represented the very strong USA team many times, winning a gold individual medal at the 41st Chess Olympiad in Norway and following that up with team gold at the next Olympiad in Baku, the first victory for the United States team for forty years. He remains the highest scoring player in the US Olympiad team’s history. At the 2018 US Chess Championship, Sam finished in clear first place ahead of such luminaries as Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, and Hikaru Nakamura, three names that have graced the chessboards of previous London Chess Classics.
Now a highly acclaimed author, Sam’s opening courses on the Semi-Slav and Neo-Catalan have gained him many supporters, while he has recently turned his attention to educating all of us on calculation, converting extra pawns and theoretical rook endgames in his most recent books.
This will be Sam’s first visit to the London Chess Classic. Chess connoisseurs will enjoy watching his methodical and well-prepared chess, his mastery of strategic positions, and his practical decision making. How will this hold up against his fellow competitors from across the pond? Only time will tell.
Sam Shankland
Rating: 2654
World Ranking: 63
Nikita Vitiugov
Rating: 2654
World Ranking: 64
Born in St. Petersburg, the 2021 Russian Champion twice won the World Team Championship with his native country. He’s also won many strong international tournaments, including the Gibraltar Masters in 2013, which at the time could claim to be the world’s strongest Open.
Horrified at his mother country’s invasion of Ukraine, Nikita Vitiugov first moved from Russia to Spain with his wife and young child and has settled in north London. Now a regular for the England team, he was unbeaten on top board at the recent European Team Chess Championships.
Nikita is renowned for his universal style, as well as excellent preparation, and is equally happy to open with 1.d4 or 1.e4 as White. Little wonder that he has seconded Peter Svidler in two Candidates tournaments, as well as his good friend Ian Nepomniachtchi in his last two World Championship matches.
This will be Nikita’s fourth appearance at the Classic, having first helped the Rest of the World to victory over England in 2021. UK fans will surely welcome the chance to see their leading player in action and based on his performance at ChessFest in Trafalgar Square back in July, Nikita will gain plenty more fans.
Away from the board, Nikita is an avid football fan, as well as someone who likes long walks, classical music and the BBC series Cormoran Strike.
Nikolas Theodorou
Rating: 2652
World Ranking: 67
Born in Athens, Nikolas’s talent at chess was obvious from an early age. After his family moved to Crete he began lessons at the Chess Club of Rethymno, becoming an International Master in 2016. The Grandmaster title followed five years later, by which time Nikolas was a regular in the Greek national team, winning an individual silver medal on board two at the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai.
Now resident in St Louis, Louisiana, where he is majoring in Engineering Physics at the university, Nikolas has had something of a breakthrough year in 2025. In August, he entered the world’s top 100 players for the first time and at the FIDE Grand Swiss in September, he defeated Gukesh in the sixth round, becoming the first ever Greek player to score a victory in classical chess against the reigning World Champion.
With other wins under his belt against stars such as Caruana, Aronian, Erigaisi, and Radjabov, the future looks extremely bright for Nikolas. UK chess fans will be looking forward to seeing how he performs in his first appearance at the London Chess Classic. With his dynamic style of play and counter-punching repertoire with the black pieces, we can certainly expect some exciting games.
Abhimanyu Mishra
Rating: 2652
World Ranking: 68
The London Chess Classic is no stranger to rising chess stars: Magnus Carlsen won our event three times before becoming World Champion and the current incumbent, Gukesh, finished third in our 2023 event. We are therefore delighted to welcome Mishra to the 2025 XTX Markets London Chess Classic, a young American player who holds the records for being both the world’s youngest ever grandmaster (12 years, 4 months, 25 days) and the youngest player to ever defeat the reigning World Champion in a classical game.
Introduced to chess by his father when aged just two, Mishra has been playing competitively since the age of five. Ever since then, the records have been tumbling: the youngest player ever to achieve a USCF rating above 2000 (7 years, 6 months, 22 days) and the youngest ever International Master (10 years, 9 months, 20 days). While Mishra’s rating hovered around the 2600 level for most of 2024 and 2025, he seems to have made a huge step forward recently, his 2828-performance at the Grand Swiss leading to a gain of 32 points and edging him above 2650 for the first time.
Mishra’s deep engine-based preparation combined with remarkably mature endgame technique make him a very dangerous opponent, even at this exalted level of chess. His tenacity and fighting spirit will no doubt win Mishra plenty of new fans in this his first chess tournament on UK soil.
Michael Adams
Rating: 2646
World Ranking: 74
Michael Adams won his first British Championship at the age of 17 and a further eight victories have placed him just one title behind Jonathan Penrose. By the early 1990s, Mickey was establishing himself as one of the world’s leading players. He would spend many years in the world’s top-five, coming agonisingly close to winning the FIDE World Championship in 2004, losing a rapid play-off to Rustam Kasimdzhanov in the final.
Mickey helped England to the bronze medals at the 1990 Olympiad and then to gold at the 1997 European Team Championship. For more than two decades he anchored the team on top board, and remains a regular in the England open team, as well as board one in the over-50 team, the European Senior Team gold medallists.
The former World Individual Senior Champion is a fixture at the London Chess Classic, having played in every event since the inaugural tournament at Olympia in 2009. Who could forget Mickey’s superb performance at the 2023 Classic, where he claimed an unbeaten first place ahead of the current World Champion Gukesh. That sufficed for a 2770 performance and reminded the world that Adams can still compete with the world’s best.
Renowned for his positional prowess, Mickey is sometimes known as the Spider on account of his ability to run opponents out of active possibilities. Away from chess, he enjoys running and watching both Somerset and England play cricket. Mickey is also a Tottenham Hotspur fan, something he may keep quiet as he makes the Emirates Stadium his home for a week.
Gawain Maroroa Jones
Rating: 2643
World Ranking: 81
Three-times British Champion Gawain Maroroa Jones has long been one of England’s leading grandmasters. Talented from a very young age, he became the youngest player ever to defeat an International Master in an official tournament game aged just nine years old. That rapidplay win against our very own tournament supremo, Chess in Schools and Communities Chief Executive, and Daily Telegraph chess columnist, Malcolm Pein, even propelled Gawain on to the front page of The Guardian.
As his family moved from Yorkshire to Italy to Ireland, Gawain continued to play plenty of chess and improve rapidly. He became an IM in 2004 at the age of 17 and a grandmaster just three years later, before breaking the 2600 barrier in 2011 en route to winning the Commonwealth Championship and then the British Championship for the first time in 2012.
Gawain has long been a regular in the England team, for whom he won both team silver and individual silver medals at the 2019 World Team Championships in Astana. In 2024, he capped an outstanding chess season, which included winning the English and British Championships, by becoming our very own London Chess Classic Champion, scoring a very impressive 5/7 to finish a full point clear of a strong field.
Long a contented globetrotter, Gawain has lived in Australia and New Zealand, with his late wife Sue Maroroa, and nowadays resides in Sheffield with his two young children.
Luke McShane
Rating: 2614
World Ranking: 134
Luke McShane can safely claim home advantage when playing at the Emirates, being the only London-born competitor in our elite line-up. A prodigy from an early age, Luke’s rise through the chess rankings was meteoric, becoming World Under-10 Champion when just eight, and a Grandmaster at sixteen. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Luke then pursued a career outside chess, becoming a financial trader in the City for several years and earning himself a reputation as the world’s strongest amateur player.
Despite this, Luke saw no shortage of success on the chessboard, winning the Bunratty Masters in 1998, and the North Sea Cup and the Malmo Masters, both in 2003. He has been a regular international player for England, including at the 2019 World Team Championship in Astana, where he achieved a team silver medal as well as winning individual gold on board two.
The London Chess Classic has seen some of Luke’s most memorable performances. Who can forget the wonders weaved by Luke’s knights in taking down Magnus Carlsen in the 2010 event? Or indeed Luke’s domination of the Super Rapidplay Open in 2015, finishing a full point clear of a field of 32 other grandmasters. Can England’s most mercurial chess star produce another vintage performance at the Emirates? Many chess fans will hope so.
