2/15/2026 – The FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship is taking place on 13-15 February at the Weissenhaus resort. Eight players have qualified through the 2025 Grand Slam Tour and online competition. In Sunday's finals, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana battle to become the Freestyle Chess world champion. | Follow the games live with expert commentary starting at 15.00 CET (9.00 ET, 19.30 IST)
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In this course GM Ganguly turns calculation into a trainable skill with a structured path for any level.
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Finals
The FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026 is staged from 13 to 15 February at the Schloss Weissenhaus resort in Wangels, Germany. It is the first world championship under that title and the third official World Chess960 Championship organised by FIDE.
Friday, February 13: The tournament opens with a rapid round-robin stage, following the format used in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam events. All eight players face each other once with a time control of 10 minutes plus 5-second increment. The top four players advance to the semifinals, while the remaining players move into placement matches.
Saturday, February 14: The knockout stage begins with the semifinals and placement matches, played with a time control of 25 minutes plus 10-second increment. The semifinals will be played as four-game matches.
Sunday, February 15: The final, played over four games, and the placement matches use the same 25 minutes plus 10-second increment. In the final, the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion is determined.
All final places from first to eighth will be decided over the board. The total prize fund is $300,000, with $100,000 awarded to the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion.
In almost every chess game there comes a moment when you just can’t go on without tactics. You must strike to not giving away the advantage you have worked for the whole game. In almost every chess game there comes a moment when you just can’t go on without tactics. You must strike, because nothing is more annoying than missing a winning combination in the decisive situation, and thus giving away the advantage you have worked for the whole game. So it is vital to train tactics properly - and Master Class Tactics offers you the perfect tool for this! On this Fritztrainer, IM Oliver Reeh has compiled his favourites from the CBM column “Tune your Tactics” issues 219 to 227.
Free sample video: Introduction
Free sample video: Do you know the Archangelsk? / Sukovic - Kazakousky
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
Slav and Semi-Slav Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains a total of 11 766 games from Mega 2026 or the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 1136 are annotated.
For the Slav and Semi-Slav Powerbook 2026 the ratings average was set again at 2400. 2.24 million games from the engine room of playchess.com met this threshold, to which were added over 130 000 games played by humans.
In this volume, we dive into core aspects of chess technique. Smyslov taught the principle of tactical hierarchy, “checks, double attacks, and unprotected pieces”, and Mikhalchishin demonstrates how this method of calculation is vital.
Videos: Nico Zwirs examines two Petroffs from the 2026 Candidates. Robert Ris has a tip against the Caro-Kann Advance Variation with 3…c5. Fiona Sieber reveals a surprise weapon against the Najdorf. ‘Lucky Bag’ with 40 analyses by Ganguly, L'Ami et al.
YOUR PERSONAL CHESS COACH - Whether you’re taking your first steps into the world of club chess, or already playing at a tournament level: with FRITZ, you can train more efficiently, intelligently and with a more personalised approach than ever before.
In this powerful new course, endgame expert Karsten Müller teams up with rising star Leon Mendonca to deliver what truly matters: 10 essential rules that every player must know.
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