June 6, 2025, marked the end of the Norway Chess Open this year, one that gave us plenty of memorable moments. Chess already has quite a few World Level Championships, where some of the best players in the world engage in tactical battles.
The World Chess Championships, the Candidates Tournament, Chess Olympiad, FIDE World Cup, and the FIDE Grand Prix are some of the most renowned Chess tournaments in the world. The Norway Open, having completed its 13th edition, is another exciting addition to that list.
The Norway Open was held in Stavanger this time, a picturesque town in Norway with rooftop houses and scenic locations all around. The tournament featured six of the best players from around the world in a round-robin format, where each player had a go at another.
This happened twice. The players who competed in the men’s event are Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Gukesh Dommaraju (India), Arjun Erigaisi (India), Fabiano Caruana (USA), Wei Yi (China), and Hikaru Nakamura (USA). For the women’s section, there were Anna Muzychuk (Ukraine), Lei Tingjie (China), Koneru Humpy (India), Ju Wenjun (China), Vaishali Rameshbabu (India), and Sarasadat Khademalsharieh (Spain).
After an exciting two weeks of Chess competition that saw several tight matches and nail-biting finishes, it was Magnus Carlsen, from men’s, and Anna Muzychuk, from women’s, who won their respective competitions. This was Carlsen’s 7th Norway Chess Championship title victory in only its 13 years of existence.
He has dominated the contest – a feat fitting for the World Number 1 Chess player. The women’s section of the tournament, however, started only last year when Ju Wenjun won. This time, Wenjun was placed 4th, after Humpy, Tingjie, and Muzychuk, who won.
Although many predicted Magnus to win from the start and backed him all the way, it wasn’t as if Carlsen faced no competition in the tournament. While Carlsen may be the World Number 1 player, Gukesh D is the current World Chess Champion. Many fancied Gukesh to pose a serious threat to Magnus, and he did just that.
In their first encounter at the tournament, Magnus Carlsen defeated Gukesh after the latter made a costly mistake in the endgame. Magnus, being one of the finest endgame players in the world, took full advantage of that mistake and never let Gukesh recover from it.
After winning that match, Magnus Carlsen put up a post that quoted Omar Little’s famous saying from the TV series The Wire, which goes, “If you come at the King, you best not miss.” Magnus also defeated Arjun Erigaisi after that, displaying his tremendous endgame prowess. He looked like it was going to be a ‘clean sweep’ for him ahead of winning the tournament. However, the World Champion Gukesh had other plans.
In their next match, Gukesh managed to force an error out of Magnus early on. Magnus sacrificed a key piece in the hope that he would be able to promote his pawn to a Queen. But Gukesh was too smart and too fast to prevent that from happening. The 19-year-old Grandmaster not only beat Magnus Carlsen, but also beat him in the endgame.
That speaks volumes about Gukesh’s talent. Magnus slammed the desk hard immediately after Gukesh’s ‘death grip’ move, a moment that became the most exciting in this tournament.
With such intense contests between champion players promised every time, the Norway Chess Open is sure to thrive in the future. After Gukesh’s win against Magnus, Chess fans might’ve felt that he would win his remaining fixtures. Unfortunately, Gukesh lost to Hikaru Nakamura in a strategic battle, further solidifying the point about the Norway Open’s unpredictable nature. Other close games in the men’s division were also pretty exciting. Hikaru Nakamura defeated Fabiano Caruana after initially offering a draw, and getting rejected. Caruana rejected Nakamura’s offer for a draw, and later blundered during the endgame due to the time crunch.
This was a strange delight for Nakamura and his fans. Caruana then bounced back against Wei Yi, whereas Gukesh lost to Arjun Erigaisi, who had previously lost to Carlsen. This roundabout nature of one player defeating another went on throughout the event.
This is what made the Norway Open so much more exciting. It’s short with fewer players, but the best ones in the world, which almost guarantees most, if not all, close finishes. Eventually, after almost everyone beating and losing against everyone, it was still the World Number 1 player who won the competition. It, thus, proved the adage, ‘The Cream Always Rises to the Top.’
At the women’s section, Muzychuk took the lead after winning against Koneru Humpy in a classical match. Humpy kept herself in the race to win after beating Sarasadat Khademalsharieh. She was sharing the lead with Muzychuk until that stage. They continued the lead together despite their armageddon losses, and continued their neck-to-neck contest. In the end, however, Muzychuk won the competition with 16.5 points. She was half a point ahead of Lei Tingjie, who came second.
With such tight finishes in both the men’s and women’s sections, the tournament has surely grabbed plenty of eyeballs in the Chess world this year. With so many already-existing Chess tournaments, many were skeptical of what value Norway Chess Open brings. But this year’s edition has proved that the Norway Chess Open provides plenty of exciting and breathtaking moments for Chess fans to be enthusiastic about.
The most memorable of all might be Magnus Carlsen slamming the desk after losing to Gukesh D in the final moments of their game. Speaking on Gukesh’s comeback in that match, commentator and Grandmaster David Howell labeled it as the ‘turnaround of the year.’
The Norway Chess Open will return next year for its 14th edition, possibly with much more fanfare.
