All posts tagged: Freestyle Chess

Magnus Carlsen claims 21st world championship title after pulling rabbit out of hat in game 3 of final vs Fabiano Caruana | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen claims 21st world championship title after pulling rabbit out of hat in game 3 of final vs Fabiano Caruana | Chess News

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On a dramatic day in the seaside German town of Weissenhaus, Magnus Carlsen won the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship—his 21st World Championship title—after defeating Fabiano Caruana in a four-game finale late on Sunday. Carlsen has five classical World Championships besides six World Rapid Championships and nine World Blitz Championships. Now Carlsen adds a world title in the one format that was missing. “It’s certainly not one of my most convincing wins today,” Carlsen told the YouTube channel of Freestyle Chess after winning the title. “… but it feels great to win on a bit of an off-day. I’m a little disappointed that I couldn’t bring the level that I showed yesterday. It feels great to win but I can do even better.” Caruana, chasing his first ever World Championship crown in any format, had winning positions in three of the four rapid games in the final against Carlsen, but could convert none. The third game between the pair was particularly chastening for the American grandmaster. For, it was there that he held a winning …

After year of stand-off, FIDE, Freestyle Chess announce FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship

After year of stand-off, FIDE, Freestyle Chess announce FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship

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After more than a year of confrontation and stand-off, Freestyle Chess and FIDE have finally decided to bury the hatchet and join forces, announcing that they will host the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus, Germany, from February 13–15, 2026. The differences between the two parties were public, and despite multiple attempts, ending the dispute and finding a middle ground proved difficult for both. In February 2025, The Indian Express reported that FIDE and Freestyle Chess had been very close to an amicable agreement before talks broke down. Jan Henric Buettner, the German billionaire entrepreneur behind the ambitious Freestyle Grand Slam Tour, revealed to this newspaper how the months-long feud was finally resolved. “With Arkady (Dvorkovich), I had a very good understanding. We nearly had an agreement a year ago. We were actually finalising the wording of a press release. And then, at the very last moment, it somehow fell apart. I don’t know how. I don’t want to speculate, but it was kind of very weird,” he told The Indian Express. “And so …

Freestyle Chess organisers and FIDE bury hatchet to announce FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship | Chess News

Freestyle Chess organisers and FIDE bury hatchet to announce FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship | Chess News

Published by Webster

After a long and public squabble, FIDE and the organisers of Freestyle Chess have buried the hatchet and agreed to jointly host a World Championship in the freestyle format this year. Called the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, the event will be hosted in Weissenhaus from February 13–15. In essence this will be the fifth world championship in the sport besides the classical World Chess Championship (which is the most prestigious and held every two years), the World Rapid Championship and the World Blitz Championship (which are held together at the end of each year) and the newly-announced Total Chess World Championship, which will go live from 2027 after a pilot event this year. FIDE, the global governing body of chess, announced that the new World Championship will be “governed by FIDE in collaboration with Freestyle Chess”. FIDE said that six players have already qualified for the eight-player event, based on their results during the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour: Magnus Carlsen, Arjun Erigaisi, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer, and Javokhir Sindarov. Two …

Magnus Carlsen vs The World: World No 1 held to draw by 1.4 lakh people in online vote-chess event | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen vs The World: World No 1 held to draw by 1.4 lakh people in online vote-chess event | Chess News

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World No 1 Magnus Carlsen was held to a draw in an online “vote-chess” match by 1.4 lakh people who took him on in a freestyle chess game played on Chess.com. The game had started on April 4, and ended on Monday after a perpetual check on Magnus Carlsen’s king. By the time the end came, both sides had five pawns and the queen and king left standing with other pieces having been eliminated. In case you’re wondering how Magnus Carlsen took on 1.4 lakh people — 1,43,496 players to be precise — at the same time, here’s how: Carlsen’s opponents played by voting on the app. The move which got the most votes was then played. Each side had 24 hours to make a move. Magnus Carlsen was playing with white pieces. How Magnus Carlsen vs held to draw by The World window.addEventListener(“message”,e=>{e[‘data’]&&”13297594″===e[‘data’][‘id’]&&document.getElementById(${e[‘data’][‘id’]})&&(document.getElementById(${e[‘data’][‘id’]}).style.height=${e[‘data’][‘frameHeight’]+37}px)}); Story continues below this ad Chess.com had predicted that Magnus Carlsen would win by a wide margin. In a post publicizing the game, Chess.com had the following answer to the question, …

When Susan Polgar helped Bobby Fischer finalise rules Freestyle Chess

When Susan Polgar helped Bobby Fischer finalise rules Freestyle Chess

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Bobby Fischer and Susan Polgar, two of the most iconic figures of chess, might remember Budapest differently. But speaking about her just-released book, Rebel Queen, to chess.com, the eldest Polgar genius recounted how Fischer brainstormed with her on his initial ideas on the revolutionary format, even as Freestyle Chess, known essentially as Fischer Random or Chess960 came into being. Susan Polgar’s memoir delves into several topics, but hitherto little known was how she persuaded Fischer, back then in hiding from American agencies after the Boris Spassky rematch, to move to Budapest. Story continues below this ad Susan told chess.com, “That was quite fascinating that after his match, he was kind of in hiding in a little town just across the Hungarian-Yugoslav border. And to my biggest surprise, at one moment when I happened to be in Peru, as I later learned, one of our mutual friends reached out to my family to come to visit. And my parents and my sisters went to visit, and the meeting went well, but he was complaining about how I didn’t …

Meet Leon Luke Mendonca, the bespectacled smiling assassin of the 64 squares who plays violin

Meet Leon Luke Mendonca, the bespectacled smiling assassin of the 64 squares who plays violin

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In just 14 moves, Ian Nepomniachtchi was reduced to frowning at his pieces like they were refusing to obey his commands. Things had curdled pretty fast for the Russian on the board in round 3 of the Grenke Freestyle Chess Open 2025. A few moves later, Nepo was pushed past the point of no return. On move 36, he resigned. Against a player who had over 100 rating points less than him. In the next round, it was Hungarian grandmaster Richard Rapport’s turn to endure punishment, and then heartbreak in the form of defeat. The player who had made two of the world’s top chess players roll over in back-to-back games was a 19-year-old grandmaster from India. Not one of the usual suspects of Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa and Arjun Erigaisi. The boy making heads turn at the Grenke Freestyle event over nine rounds was Leon Luke Mendonca, who is contemporary of the Gukesh-Praggnanandhaa-Arjun Erigaisi vintage, and was playing in his first event in freestyle chess — a variant of the sport that has been called by …

Selfie with opponent before start of game, complaint to arbiter about wrist watch

Selfie with opponent before start of game, complaint to arbiter about wrist watch

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Magnus Carlsen finds himself as the only unbeaten player at the Grenke Freestyle Chess Open 2025 with an unblemished record after five games. Carlsen has had an interesting event so far at the German city of Karlsruhe, which has included being asked for a selfie by an opponent right before the start of a game. Then, before the start of another showdown, Carlsen has had to call on an arbiter to make sure his 53-year-old opponent takes off his wrist watch. There are seven players who are in the chasing pack behind the former world champion, just half a point behind the world no 1: Alexey Sarana, Parham Maghsoodloo, Leon Luke Mendonca, Awonder Liang, Paulius Pultinevicius, Baadur Jobava, and Matthias Bluebaum. On Saturday, Carlsen played his first game of the day against French grandmaster Etienne Bacrot, who is a eight-time French Champion. But before the start of the battle, there was a surprising request for Carlsen: Bacrot wanted a selfie on the board with the five-time world champion. This brought a grin on the face …

Arjun Erigaisi defeats Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in game 1 of 5th place playoff

Arjun Erigaisi defeats Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in game 1 of 5th place playoff

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Arjun Erigaisi defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in 41 moves with black pieces in the playoff for the 5th place at the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Sunday. Both players will be back on Monday to play the second game with colours reversed. At the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess event, Arjun is already assured to be the best finishing Indian out of the four players who competed. While reigning world champion Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi finished joint 11th, Praggnanandhaa finished ninth in the standings after defeating Richard Rapport. If Arjun finishes in 5th place at the Paris event, he will take home a cool $50,000 (approximately Rs 43 lakh). How Arjun Erigaisi defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave The game started with position number 103 being drawn and Arjun finding himself in a huddle with other players who were also playing with black pieces on Sunday — Ian Nepomniachtchi, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. The three veterans did all the talking in the huddle over the chessboard, while Arjun sat at a distance, …

Even legends of game can be caught out of depth in variant

Even legends of game can be caught out of depth in variant

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For nearly an hour on Wednesday, Hikaru Nakamura had the overpowering urge to strangle Ian Nepomniachtchi. The American and the Russian grandmaster were not actually paired to face each other in the quarter-finals of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour’s Paris event — Nakamura was jousting with India’s Arjun Erigaisi, while Nepomniachtchi was parrying off attacks from Germany’s Vincent Keymer. The urge to cause bodily harm to another player was born from the fact that Nakamura had blindly copied Nepomniachtchi’s suggestions for a risky gambit in the opening with the black pieces in Position 841. That ploy, against a player of Arjun’s ‘mad-man’ credentials, had almost backfired and led to defeat. It’s an idiosyncrasy of the Freestyle/Fischer Random chess variant — which is particularly highlighted at the Freestyle Chess events — that even early adopters and legends of the game like Magnus Carlsen and Nakamura constantly find themselves out of depth. Almost like they are re-learning how to walk again after spending years in space. It must be pointed out that compared to the Indian …

Explained: What is Freestyle Chess?

Explained: What is Freestyle Chess?

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For long, Chess has been perceived as the game of select intellectuals. While India did have its share of challengers, Viswanathan Anand well and truly transformed the landscape in the country. And post the pandemic, the popularity has increased and with Gukesh D winning the World Chess Championship, the following has skyrocketed. The sport itself is now evolving and widening its range by creating more opportunities for players at every level. Freestyle Chess is one of those new variants that has caught the attention of the chess world over the past year. What is Freestyle Chess? Freestyle Chess, also known as Fischer Random or Chess960, is a variant where the initial piece positions on the back rank are randomized, which encourages creativity and eliminates the need for memorized openings. It was first introduced by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1996 to reduce the emphasis on opening preparation, but it wasn’t getting much attention in mainstream. But now, 28 years later, this variant is getting a new new lease of life, especially after it …