European Club Cup 2026

Dates and Venue

Dates

October 16-24, 2026 (Rounds from October 17-23)

Venue

Hotel Medun, Herceg Novi, Montenegro

Format

7-round Team Swiss, with 6 boards in the Open Cup and 4 in the Women's Cup

Prize Fund

40,000 euros total (26,000 for the Open Cup and 14,000 for the Women's Cup), including board prizes

Defending Champions

SuperChess (Open) and Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo (Women), from Rhodes 2025

At Stake

Five qualification spots for the European Chess Super League (February 2-10, 2027)

Organizers

European Chess Union and the Chess Federation of Montenegro

Entries

Closed on August 10, 2026. Team lists are not yet published.

The 41st European Chess Club Cup and the 30th European Chess Club Cup for Women are scheduled for October 16-24, 2026, in Herceg Novi, Montenegro. This 9-day event, organized by the European Chess Union and the Chess Federation of Montenegro, includes an arrival day, seven playing days, and a departure day. The official website provides details on the venue, regulations, and schedule.

The venue and official hotel for the tournaments are at Hotel Medun, Herceg Novi. Organizers provide free transfers from Podgorica and Tivat airports on October 16 and 24, 2026. Registration, extended from August 1, closed on August 10, 2026. As of September 12, 2026, the chess-results page for the women's tournament only listed the tournament director, IO Jovan Milovic, and an average rating of 2092 (last updated September 3), with no team rosters yet published.

This tournament takes place between two other chess events: it starts 19 days after the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand concludes (September 27, 2026) and ends 31 days before the World Chess Championship match between Gukesh and Sindarov begins in Geneva (November 24, 2026).

European Club Cup 2026 Schedule

Rounds 1 to 6 are held daily from Saturday, October 17, to Thursday, October 22, each starting at 15:00 local time. Round 7 begins an hour earlier, at 14:00, on Friday, October 23. Herceg Novi observes Central European Summer Time (UTC+2) throughout the tournament, as clocks do not change until Sunday, October 25, the day after departures. For Indian viewers, who are three and a half hours ahead, Rounds 1 to 6 start at 18:30 IST, and Round 7 begins at 17:30 IST.

For Indian viewers, the opening ceremony at 20:00 on Friday, October 16, corresponds to 23:30 IST. The technical meeting at 22:00 that same evening is at 01:30 IST on October 17. The closing ceremony at 21:00 on October 23 translates to 00:30 IST on October 24. Given that games under this time control can last approximately five hours, rounds starting at 18:30 IST may conclude close to midnight in India.

Format and Tiebreaks

Both events are FIDE-rated 7-round team Swiss tournaments, running in parallel. Open Cup teams compete across 6 boards with up to 2 reserves. Women's Cup teams compete across 4 boards with 1 reserve. Scoring follows the match-point system (2 points for a win, 1 for a draw). In 2025, SuperChess finished with 14 match points (7 wins), while Monte-Carlo scored 13 points (6 wins and a draw).

1. 1.Ties are resolved using 4 tiebreak criteria. Tiebreak 1: Team Sonneborn-Berger (calculated as each opponent's match points multiplied by the board points scored against them, discarding the lowest-scoring opponent). Tiebreak 2: Total board points won. Tiebreak 3: Sum of opponents' board points. Tiebreak 4: Board points scored by defeated opponents, plus half the board points of drawn opponents.
2. 2.Time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the remainder of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting from move one.
3. 3.A draw by agreement is prohibited before Black's 30th move. Any player arriving more than 15 minutes after the start of a round forfeits by default.
4. 4.All 7 games count toward grandmaster and international master norms. ECU anti-cheating regulations and dress code apply.

In 2025, tiebreaks decided medal placements in Rhodes. In the Open section, Alkaloid edged out Novy Bor on Sonneborn-Berger for silver after both finished on 12 match points. In the Women's section, Tajfun SK Ljubljana secured bronze on tiebreaks ahead of SuperChess and CE Gambit Bonnevoie, as all three tied on 9 points.

The tournament regulations include contingency formats for smaller fields: a round-robin for up to 8 teams and a combined system for 9 to 12 teams. Neither was needed in 2025, which saw 102 Open teams and 20 Women's teams.

Defending Champions: Rhodes 2025

In October 2025, Romania's SuperChess secured its first Open title in Rhodes with 14 match points from 7 victories in 7 matches, finishing 2 points clear of the field. Coached by Ivan Sokolov, the team defeated Tuxera Aquaprofit Nagykanizsai Sakk Klub 3.5-2.5 in the final round. Gukesh joined the squad on Board 1 starting in Round 3, going undefeated to score 4 out of 5, including a draw with Anish Giri against Bayegan Pendik in Round 5 and a victory over Arjun Erigaisi in a match where the other 5 boards ended in draws.

Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo claimed the Women's Cup for the eighth time, finishing with 13 match points, 3 ahead of runners-up Sirmium Sremska Mitrovica (10 points). Monte-Carlo secured the title with 6 wins and a final-round draw against Turkish Airlines Sports Club, where all four individual games were drawn. Alina Kashlinskaya delivered decisive wins for the team against Tajfun SK Ljubljana and in the penultimate round. Full standings and individual board prizes can be found in the FIDE report from October 26, 2025, and the chess.com report from October 28, 2025.

Teams and Entry Rules

The 2025 cups in Rhodes attracted 122 clubs and approximately 800 players, comprising 102 teams in the Open Cup and 20 in the Women's Cup. The field included 111 grandmasters and 137 international masters. Bayegan Pendik Chess Sports led the Open teams with an average rating of 2711, followed by Alkaloid (2701) and Novy Bor (2683). Champions SuperChess ranked fourth at 2678. Cercle d'Echecs de Monte-Carlo headed the Women's Cup field with a 2490 average, followed by Turkish Airlines Sports Club at 2474.

The same clubs led in 2024. According to the ECU report from October 22, 2024, eight Open teams held perfect scores after 3 rounds: SuperChess, Turkish Airlines, Tajfun SK Ljubljana, Alkaloid, Bayegan Pendik, Novy Bor, Tuxera Aquaprofit Nagykanizsai, and Sentimento Ajka BSK. SuperChess was coming off a 5-1 victory over Vugar Gashimov. In the Women's Cup, Tajfun SK Ljubljana and Garuda Ajka BSK led the standings with 6 match points each. As of September 12, 2026, the final 2024 standings were not available on the checked pages.

Each federation may register up to 4 clubs in the Open Cup, or 5 if it organizes a national team championship. Entries for the Women's Cup are unrestricted. To be eligible, a foreign player must have played at least 2 games in their club's national team championship. For 2026, ECU license fees have been waived for all women's teams. Registration closed on August 10, 2026, but team lists were not yet public as of September 12, 2026. We will add the rosters once published by the European Chess Union or chess-results.

The Open Cup serves as a qualifier for 5 of the 8 berths in the European Chess Super League, scheduled for February 2-10, 2027, which boasts a 300,000 euro prize fund. The top 4 finishers qualify, joined by the highest-rated team outside the top 4. The total prize fund for the event in Herceg Novi is 40,000 euros, allocated as 26,000 for the Open Cup and 14,000 for the Women's Cup, with 5,000 of the total distributed among 10 individual board prizes of 500 euros each. Tied prizes are divided using the Hort system. Players must appear in at least 70% of the rounds (or 50% for reserves) to qualify for an individual board prize.

Indian Players at the European Club Cup

Indian players claimed 5 board prizes in Rhodes in 2025. According to FIDE, Gukesh took first place on Board 1 of the Open Cup. Nihal Sarin and Aravindh Chithambaram placed first and third, respectively, on Board 4. Puranik Abhimanyu finished second on Board 6. In the Women's Cup, Divya Deshmukh won first place on Board 2.

In the 2024 cup, Arjun Erigaisi started with 3 out of 3, raising his published rating of 2797 to a live rating of 2799.6. The European Chess Union highlighted this performance as a run to become the second Indian player, after Viswanathan Anand, to cross the 2800 threshold. That same week, Gukesh was rated 2794. A chess.com report on October 28, 2025, later placed Gukesh in the world's top 10 following his 4 out of 5 score for SuperChess.

As of September 12, 2026, the 2026 team lists have not been made public; the Indian players' board assignments will be added once the rosters are released. Gukesh is scheduled to play Sindarov for the world title in Geneva starting November 24, 2026, a month after the cup concludes.

How to Watch

• —Live Games: Pairings and results are available on the official website and chess-results pages. The 2025 games were broadcast on chess.com's event pages.
• —Commentary: In 2025, the European Chess Union streamed live commentary on its YouTube channel, featuring Alojzije Jankovic, Lena Govedarica, and Sandra Djukic, with ChessBase listing the commentary start as 14:00 CEST (17:30 IST). In 2024, the stream was hosted on ECU TV and the same YouTube channel, presented by Jankovic and Dragana Nikolovska. As of September 12, 2026, the broadcast schedule for the 2026 event had not yet been announced.
• —Start Times in India: Rounds 1 to 6 take place from October 17-22 at 18:30 IST, followed by Round 7 on October 23 at 17:30 IST.
• —The Games Themselves: Review completed games move by move using the Zapp analysis board.

European Club Cup 2026 FAQ

The information on this page was verified on September 12, 2026, using the following sources: the event's official website and tournament regulations; the European Chess Union's 2026 invitation and invitation PDF; the chess-results women's cup page; the FIDE and chess.com reports on the 2025 cups; the 2025 ChessBase live coverage page; and the European Chess Union's report on Round 3 of the 2024 cup. IST schedules assume Herceg Novi observes Central European Summer Time until Sunday, October 25, 2026.