Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour
| 2025 | |
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Sport | Chess960 |
| Dates | February 7–December 12, 2025 |
| Host(s) | Wangels, Germany Paris, France New York, United States Delhi, India Cape Town, South Africa |
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is a series of Chess960 tournaments in 2025 organized by Freestyle Chess Operations. It will consist of five "Grand Slam" tournaments following the format of the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge, held in 2024. Players will score points based on placement in each event. The player with the highest score at the end of the year will become the Freestyle Chess World Champion.[1]
The tour was co-founded by five-time World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and German investor Jan Henric Buettner.[2][3][4] Carlsen has been an advocate for Chess960 as an alternative for classical chess that eliminates opening preparation and theory.[5][6][7] In July 2024, Left Lane Capital invested $12 million in the venture.[8][9][10]
Format
[edit]Each tournament will have ten participants. The top eight finishers in the rapid round-robin stage advance to the knockout stage. The time control for the round-robin stage is 10 minutes with an increment of 10 seconds per move. No draw offers are allowed until move 40. The ninth and tenth place finishers are required to perform commentary for the knockout stage. Refusal to do so results in a 50% reduction of their prize money. Ninth place is determined in a playoff.[1]
The players are seeded 1-8 for the single-elimination knockout stage based on their performance in the round-robin stage. Each match is a best of two games. The time control is 90 minutes with an increment of 30 seconds per move. No draw offers are allowed until after move 40. The higher-seeded player starts the match with black in the first game. In the event of a tie, the tiebreak is two 10+10 rapid games followed by two 5+2 blitz games if the tie persists, and then one armageddon game with bidding.[1] Third, fifth and seventh places are determined in playoffs.
The points and prize money distribution is as follows:
| Place | Grand Slam Points | Prize money |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 25 | $200,000 |
| 2nd | 18 | $140,000 |
| 3rd | 15 | $100,000 |
| 4th | 12 | $60,000 |
| 5th | 10 | $50,000 |
| 6th | 8 | $40,000 |
| 7th | 6 | $30,000 |
| 8th | 4 | $20,000 |
| 9th | 2 | $12,500 |
| 10th | 1 | $7,500 |
Players and qualification
[edit]Ten players participate in the 2025 season of the Grand Slam tour, nine of which are super Grandmasters invited by the organizers, and one player qualified through the Open Qualification Competitions held by the Chess.com from 4 to 8 January.[11]
The first step of the qualifications are two Swiss system tournaments open for all registered users of Chess.com, and the top three players from each tournament are invited to the Swiss qualifications for the titled chess players. The second event has nine-rounds played with a time control of 10 minutes plus a 2-second increment. The top four players from the second phase advance to the knockout phase, where they are joined by 12 members of the Freestyle Chess Players Club, selected by Freestyle Chess, to form a 16-player field. The knockout matches (quarterfinals, semi-finals, and finals) have two games, each played with a time control of 15 minutes plus a 3-second increment.[12]
The invited players are top three finishers of the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge, highest classical ELO-rated players in a specified timeframe, organizer Wildcards for global and local talents, champions of prestigious classical tournaments prior to the Grand Slam, and winner of the Open Qualification Competition:[11][12]
- Magnus Carlsen
- Gukesh Dommaraju
- Hikaru Nakamura
- Nodirbek Abdusattorov
- Fabiano Caruana
- Levon Aronian
- Alireza Firouzja
- Vincent Keymer
- Viswanathan Anand, organizer Wildcard
- Vladimir Fedoseev, qualifier[13]
Dispute with FIDE
[edit]On December 21, 2024, the Freestyle Chess Players Club issued a press release on Twitter stating an agreement on a "friendly co-existence" with FIDE, and ongoing discussions "regarding the mutual recognition of future World Championship titles".[14] FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich replied stating that the press release "includes significant inaccuracies that mispresent the situation" and that FIDE will issue a further statement on the matter.[15]
On 27 December, 2024, in an interview with Levy Rozman after withdrawing from the World Rapid Championship over a dress code dispute, Magnus Carlsen accused FIDE of "going after players to get them not to sign with Freestyle" and "threatening them that they wouldn't be able to play the World Championship Cycle if they played in Freestyle".[16][17][18] Carlsen's claims were supported by Hikaru Nakamura.[19][20]
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky denied the claims on Twitter, stating "the claim that FIDE threatened players who were willing to participate in Freestyle Chess Tour is a lie" and "the only thing we insisted on - no Series or Tour can be called World Championship unless FIDE approves it. FIDE is the governing body of chess, and any World Championship should either be conducted or approved by FIDE".[21]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Freestyle Chess World Championship Regulations" (PDF).
- ^ "$12 million for Freestyle Chess". ChessTech News. 2024-07-25. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Soufi, Daniel (2025-01-04). "El mecenas que se ha aliado con Magnus Carlsen para cambiar la historia del ajedrez". Cinco Días (in Spanish). Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Barden, Leonard (2024-03-22). "Richest chess tour announced for 2025 as freestyle wins global appeal". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Robinson, Joshua; Beaton, Andrew (2024-11-20). "The Greatest Chess Player of All Time Is Bored With Chess". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2024-11-20. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Lozo, ByDave. "Chess is about to get a lot more unpredictable". Morning Brew. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Barden, Leonard (2024-03-18). "Chess: Carlsen and Buettner announce Freestyle Chess Tour for top players". Financial Times. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ "Chess legend Magnus Carlsen, investor Jan Henric Buettner, VC Left Lane Capital, launch new company to revolutionize professional chess". PR Newswire. 2024-07-25. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Agini, Samuel (2024-12-25). "Chess champion Magnus Carlsen leads gambit to capture ancient game". Financial Times. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Doggers, Peter (2024-07-25). "$12 million Raised For 'Revolutionary' Freestyle Series Of Tournaments". Chess.com. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ a b "Official Rules And Regulations". freestyle-chess.com.
- ^ a b "The Final Seat for the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Kick-off Awaits". freestyle-chess.com.
- ^ "GM Vladimir Fedoseev qualifies for 1st Freestyle Chess Grand Slam". ChessTopics. January 8, 2025.
- ^ L'immortale (2024-12-22). "Freestyle Chess and FIDE discuss mutual recognition of future World Championship titles". Chess Topics. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Levin (AnthonyLevin), Anthony (2025-01-02). "FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships—13 Things We Learned". Chess.com. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Ahmed, Shahid (2024-12-28). "Magnus Carlsen withdraws from World Rapid 2024". ChessBase India. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ "'I'm out, f*** you': Magnus Carlsen disqualified from World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2024 for wearing jeans". The Indian Express. 2024-12-28. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Ninan, Susan (2025-01-07). "Whose game is it anyway? The Carlsen vs Fide battle". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Paul, Koushik (2024-12-29). "Magnus Carlsen vs FIDE chess controversy: Looking beyond jeans incident; is it a PR battle?". mint. Archived from the original on 2025-01-01. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ Kamath, Amit (2025-01-04). "Random piece positions, 960 possible starts: What is freestyle chess, which led to Magnus Carlsen clashing with FIDE?". The Indian Express. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ "'One may ask Gukesh...': FIDE responds to Magnus Carlsen's claim of threatening players against joining Freestyle Chess". Firstpost. 2024-12-29. Retrieved 2025-01-09.