1/22/2025 – After the Freestyle Chess Organisation had set up a series of freestyle tournaments, the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, FIDE sought contact and asked for possibilities of cooperation. However, the FIDE representatives seemed primarily interested in payments to the World Chess Federation. Negotiations dragged on, and after a recent statement by FIDE and a video by Hikaru Nakamura, the tone of the debate became more controversial.
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In a recent video, Hikaru Nakamura commented on FIDE's explanation of the Freestyle Chess project. The Freestyle Chess Organisation's aim is to upgrade its Freestyle Chess Tour to a Freestyle Chess World Championship. Freestyle Chess is a new brand name for chess with randomly-selected starting positions, previously called Fischer Random Chess or Chess 960 (for the number of possible positions).
Hamburg businessman Jan Henric Buettner and Magnus Carlsen both enjoy this innovative form of chess and have set up a company to promote Freestyle Chess. Last year the Weissenhaus Luxury Resort hosted a magnificent first tournament with Magnus Carlsen, many other top players and Vincent Keymer representing the host country. Buettner and Carlsen have found sponsors to finance a real tour, the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, and are organising five tournaments on four continents for 2025, with Weissenhaus, Paris, New York, Delhi and Cape Town as tournament venues. A further tournament is planned.
Before the classical World Chess Championship in Singapore, there was a kick-off event in consultation with the World Chess Federation FIDE with Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, among others, at which the tour was announced. The possibilities of cooperation with regard to a Freestyle World Championship were also discussed and FIDE was interested in handing over the organization to Freestyle Chess. For a certain fee.
Anyone who has ever (co-)organized an official FIDE chess tournament knows that this is can be a challenging experience. In addition to the real costs for the organization, for example, there are also plenty of fees and honoraria for FIDE officials. Also, FIDE mostly wants to determine every detail of the start of the tournaments.
In the course of the talks, the fronts seem to have hardened and some observers believe that the "jeans incident" at the World Rapid Championship in New York - Magnus Carlsen was well dressed, but not well enough for FIDE - could also be linked to this.
With its statement on all social media, FIDE has once again added fuel to the fire, even if the tone of the statement itself seems moderate. The World Chess Federation insists on its right to the brand name "World Chess Championship" and is thus in conflict with many top players. They would like to play a World Championship in Fischer Random (or Freestyle Chess) and point out that FIDE has not been able to organise one in the last two years.
This is also Hikaru Nakamura's position, which he explained in a video stream. Nakamura cannot understand FIDE's position: "FIDE is just, I guess, worried about losing control or power or something insane, but it’s just not good for chess." Nakamura calls on the top chess professionals to take a stand against FIDE and its obstructionist policy.
Emil Sutovsky points out that the top players have signed a four-year contract with FIDE in which they agree not to take part in any other world championship.
Emil Sutovsky's reply to Hikaru Nakamura's video
Since you tagged me, I have to share the following:
A - all the players, including Magnus and Hikaru actually signed a binding obligation to not participate in any "World Championship" not approved by FIDE for the period of four years. Magnus signed it in 2023, other top players…
In this video course experts examine the games of Bent Larsen. Let them show you which openings Larsen chose, where his strength in middlegames were, how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame & you’ll get a glimpse of his tactical abilities!
From the 2026 Candidates Tournament, featuring a video review by Dorian Rogozenco, to Jan Werle’s opening video on the French Tarrasch Defence, and Oliver Reeh’s tactical column ‘Top Grandmasters at Work’. Analyses by Giri, So, Wei Yi and many others.
You will learn how Black's dynamic piece activity and structural counterplay more than compensate for White's extra tempo in the colour-reversed setups.
In this course, you’ll learn how to take the initiative against the London and prevent White from comfortably playing their usual system by playing 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Nh5.
London System Powerbase 2026 is a database and contains in all 11 285 games from Mega 2026 and the Correspondence Database 2026, of which 282 are annotated.
The London System Powerbook 2026 is based on more than 410 000 games or game fragments from different opening moves and ECO codes; what they all have in common is that White plays d4 and Bf4 but does not play c4.
In this course, Grandmaster Elisabeth Pähtz presents the London System, a structured and ambitious approach based on the immediate Bf4, leading to rich and dynamic positions.
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