Our Complete Guide to The Chess Olympiad

The Chess Olympiad isn't a sleepy little chess tournament where everyone politely shakes hands and discusses time control etiquette. It's loud (yes, even for chess), competitive, and full of national pride, gold medals, and the occasional drama that'll make even football fans raise an eyebrow.

You're not just watching one top player vs. another.

You're watching full-blown armies — teams in the open section, squads in the women's bracket, all battling for match points and bragging rights.

How the Chess Olympiad Even Started

Would you have ever imagined the Chess Olympiad started because chess players weren't allowed in the real Olympics?

Yep.

While athletes competed in Paris in 1924, chess players quietly organized their own international tournament — no podiums, just pieces.

That little rebellion kicked off something huge.

FIDE — the international chess federation — was born right then and there. By 1927, the first official Olympiad had been held in London.

Hungary dominated the early years, winning the first official Olympiad in 1927 and repeating that success more than once. For a while, they set the standard — clean, precise, and hard to beat.

Then came 1952, and with it, the Soviet Union.

Backed by a deep bench of grandmasters and future world champions, they took the top spot in their debut and kept going. Over the next four decades, they won 18 Olympiads.

No team came close.

If you saw red on the leaderboard, you already knew who finished first.

Of course, things got messy. Countries walked out, and some teams even defected mid-event.

At one point, two people literally died at the event.

But the Olympiad kept growing — more nations, more drama, more time control formats nobody could quite explain.

And yes, more arguments about board orders than you'd hear at a family dinner.

Some years, teams walked out. Some years, nobody knew who actually won until tie-breaks were recalculated for the third time.

Still, the tournament never stopped growing. Every two years, more countries signed up, more top players suited up, and more people started paying attention.

And through it all, the goal stayed the same: show up, represent your country, and checkmate somebody's ego off the planet.

What Actually Happens at This Event?

You might think the Chess Olympiad is just a glorified chess tournament where a few world champions show up, trade polite handshakes, and play eleven rounds of silent warfare.

And technically, yes — there are games, boards, and opening prep involved. But that's like saying the Olympics are just people running in circles.

This event is massive.

Nearly 200 teams show up.

Each country sends a team in the open section (which, fun fact, includes men and women), and another team for the women's section.

Each team brings four players and a spare. The top player goes on board one. The second goes on board two.

You get the idea.

Lineups matter and not just because they decide who faces whom. They reveal a team's priorities, strengths, and sometimes, pure panic. Each round, your team plays another team. Four games, one per board. If your team scores more points than theirs, you win the round.

That gets you two match points. A tie gets one. A loss yields nothing and may even lead to a post-game meltdown.It's not about one player crushing their board. The winning team is the one that survives all eleven rounds with enough match points to stay at the top.

Games are played with classical time control, so no blitz chaos here. Think four-hour slogs that test everything from stamina to snack planning.

After eleven rounds, final rankings come down to — wait for it — tie-breaks.

The Swiss pairing system keeps things balanced. Each round, you play someone with a similar score.

So by round six or seven, the bloodbaths start. And if you're still undefeated by the final day, you're either about to win a gold medal or lose one by half a point.

Who's Actually Winning and Why It Keeps Changing

If you looked at the Chess Olympiad winners 50 years ago and compared them to now, you'd think someone hit shuffle on the leaderboard. And you wouldn't be wrong.

This isn't a tournament where one team wins forever. It used to be. But not anymore.

The Soviet Union made the gold medals feel like participation trophies.

From 1952 to 1990, they won 18 times. Once the USSR fell apart, its talent scattered across brand-new flags.

Russia carried the legacy through the '90s and early 2000s. Then, comes China, winning both the open and women's sections in 2014.

Armenia snuck in with three golds, powered by one top player named Levon Aronian, who basically played like three people.

The USA even pulled off a win in 2016 with Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, and Hikaru Nakamura all on the same team. That wasn't fair.

Now the Indian team is making everyone nervous. They medaled in 2014, hosted in 2022, and destroyed in 2024.

Both the open and women's teams won gold at the 45th Chess Olympiad, which is a notable achievement. Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, Vaishali, and a full bench of top players — this wasn't a lucky break. This was a warning shot.

The 46th Chess Olympiad is next. The age of predictable champions is over — and that's the best thing that's ever happened to this game.

Why Time Controls and Tie-Breaks Are a Bloodsport of Their Own

If you've ever tried to casually explain Olympiad scoring to a non-chess person, you probably gave up halfway through and just said, "We won."

Here's how it actually works — every match in the Chess Olympiad is played using classical time control, which means the games are long, slow, and painful in all the right ways.

Players get 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, 30 extra minutes after that, plus 30 seconds added per move. So yes, if someone's tanking at move 17, you're not leaving the venue anytime soon.

Each team fields four players in every round, and each individual game contributes to the team's overall match result. A win earns one point, a draw counts for half, and a loss adds nothing. Once all four games are complete, the team's total is tallied.

If your team scores more points than the opposing team, you earn two match points. If the match is tied, both teams receive one. So, if your team loses, you get zero.

These match points accumulate over the course of eleven rounds and determine the final rankings. The team with the most match points wins the gold medals.

When two or more teams finish with the same number of match points, the rankings are decided by tie-breaks. These aren't simple. They rely on secondary systems like total game points or Sonneborn-Berger, which weighs the strength of the teams you faced and beat.

China and the USA both finished with the same score in 2018, but China won the gold medal on tie-breaks.

The same thing happened in 2022, when Uzbekistan edged out Armenia using the same system. It's not unusual for the winning team to be decided by a formula rather than a final-round result — and that's precisely why every board, and every half-point, matters.

Controversies, Chaos, and the Party Everyone Talks About But Never Explains

Would you believe two players once died during the final round of the Olympiad? Not from the stress of a bad position, but actual heart attacks.

One collapsed mid-game. Another was found in his hotel later that evening. And that's somehow not even the wildest thing that's happened at this event.

Let's start with 1976. Israel hosted the Olympiad, and in protest, the Soviet Union and 30+ other countries pulled out. So Libya hosted a fake Olympiad instead.

Yes — another chess tournament at the same time.

France literally got caught cheating in 2010. One guy played, and another guy texted computer moves. A third guy signaled them using coded body language. Real Ocean's Eleven energy, but they got banned.

Also, there's a doping policy. In 2004, players refused to provide a urine sample and had their games nullified.

So no, the Chess Olympiad isn't just endgames and flags. Sometimes it's vodka, walkouts, and scandal in the middle of a Sicilian Defense.

So… Are You Still Calling It Just a Chess Tournament?

The Chess Olympiad isn’t loud, but it’s one of the most intense, complicated, and high-stakes events in the entire chess calendar — and nothing about it is casual.

Teams fly across continents. Countries pour in funding. Grandmasters chase gold medals like it's the World Cup with pawns.

It's politics, performance, pressure, and prestige — all dressed up in time controls and tie-break sheets.

The 46th Chess Olympiad is already looming. If you're watching, take notes. If you're playing, good luck — you're stepping into a battlefield disguised as a chessboard.