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Tbilisi Chess

Chess in Tbilisi, from the first lesson to the blitz series

Most chess in Tbilisi starts in a school: academies in Gldani, Saburtalo and Didi Dighomi, and the Karseladze Chess School of the National Palace of Youth on Rustaveli Avenue, teach children in groups by level. Adults play mainly in tournaments, above all the numbered blitz and rapid series of clubs such as Merani. The federation sits on Kostava Street in Vera, and Rustavi hosts the Kvemo Kartli championships.

Schools 10

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Tournaments 6

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Where to play 12

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Chess960 at a Tbilisi board

In Tbilisi, Chess960 comes as an occasional rapid tournament rather than a weekly evening. Since June 2025 the tournament server has listed Freestyle and Chess960 rapids organised by the Merani club every few months, under titles that mix English with the Georgian names for Fischer chess and free-style chess. No regular Chess960 evening came to light.

The pieces of the back row start in one of 960 shuffled set-ups, so prepared openings stop mattering from the first move. When no tournament is on, the same game can be played online at ch960.com.

Chess960 tournaments in the Tbilisi listings, as each entry names them:

How the entries are put together

The guide holds 24 entries, 24 of them active or awaiting a newer trace. Georgia publishes no club register, so the entries were assembled from the chess-results tournament server, the FIDE list of rated tournaments, the federation's news and calendar, the schools' own pages and a business directory; the most recent reading was on .

Order within a list follows the date of the newest trace, never a verdict on quality. A question that no page answers is marked “not stated by sources”. What the source marks and status lines mean, and what the guide leaves out, is set out on the page how this site works.

Know a school or a series that is missing?

Tbilisi schools open new branches, clubs start new numbered series and halls change between seasons. If an entry has fallen behind, or a school, club or tournament is missing, send a short note with a link to a page that shows it.

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