The organizers of the FIDE World University Team Chess Championship-2026, to be held from August 4 to 9 in Almaty, have announced the group compositions for the chess Universiade, reports infohub.kz.
Among the participants are three Kazakhstani teams. The teams of the Kazakh National University (KazNU) and the Kazakh National University of Sports (KNUS) will play in Group D with the Indonesian University of Gunadarma and the British University of Oxford.
The third Kazakhstani team, Almaty Management University (Alma-U), will compete for a quarterfinal spot in Group C. Its opponents will be students from Cambridge (UK), Texas (USA), and Athens (Greece).
Group A includes teams from Ural State Mining University (UGGU) of Russia, as well as teams from the University of Melbourne (Australia), Harvard (USA), and Peking University (China).
Group B consists of student teams from the University of Pretoria (South Africa), Webster University and Saint Louis University (USA), and the University of Chile.
The round-robin matches will determine the top two teams from each group. Then follows the playoff stage: quarterfinals, semifinals, a third-place match, and the final.
Games will be played on four boards. Each team must have at least one male and at least one female player. The time control is 45 minutes plus 30 seconds per move starting from the first move.
Among the tournament participants are international grandmasters Dimitris Alexakis (Greece), Chopra Aryan, Subramaniyam Bharam, Chatterjee Kushthav, Aditya Samant (all from India), Viktor Gazik (Slovakia), Nikoloz Kacharava (Georgia), Sergey Lobanov, Rudik Makaryan, Arseniy Nesterov (all from Russia), Yair Parkhov (Israel), Francesco Sonis (Italy), and Kazybek Nogerbek (Kazakhstan).
The honor of their alma maters will be defended by international masters Meruert Kamalidenova, Satbek Akhmedinov, Arystan Isanzhulov, FIDE masters Zhangir Bizhigitov, Erlan Tleukhanov, Nurassyl Zhumabek, and other Kazakhstani players.
The opening of the first World University Team Chess Championship will take place on August 4. The first group matches will be held on the same day.
The tournament is organized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) together with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Kazakhstan, the Kazakhstan Chess Federation (KCF), the Almaty City Akimat, and Freedom Holding Corp.
The total prize fund is €50,000. The champions will receive €25,000, the runners-up €15,000, and the third-place team will share €10,000.