02-04-2025, 11:26 PM
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/f...grand-slam
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam tour head Jan Henric Buettner and the world No 1 Magnus Carlsen have called on the International Chess Federation (Fide) president Arkady Dvorkovich to resign after talks over an agreement about the new series fell through.
Last month, Fide warned the Freestyle Chess Players Club, which is co-owned by Buettner and Carlsen, that they should not brand the series as a “world championship”. Buettner said he negotiated with Dvorkovich until the early hours of Monday, only to hear from the president that the Fide council would not agree to a deal.
“He should just go away. They’re a completely incompetent and amateur organisation,” German entrepreneur Buettner said on Tuesday.
So basically, "Freestyle chess" (also known as Chess960) is a chess variant where the pieces on the back rank (i.e. everything except the pawns) starts in a random order. Magnus has been playing this a lot lately, because he's bored of regular chess theory - and now, he's involved in running an organisation, that wants to run its own Freestyle Chess World Championship (even though FIDE already runs its own championship for this version of chess).
Personally, although FIDE hasn't exactly been perfect, I am more inclined to side with them than with Magnus (who, frankly, has become increasingly petulant lately - with the jeans thing being just one example!).
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam tour head Jan Henric Buettner and the world No 1 Magnus Carlsen have called on the International Chess Federation (Fide) president Arkady Dvorkovich to resign after talks over an agreement about the new series fell through.
Last month, Fide warned the Freestyle Chess Players Club, which is co-owned by Buettner and Carlsen, that they should not brand the series as a “world championship”. Buettner said he negotiated with Dvorkovich until the early hours of Monday, only to hear from the president that the Fide council would not agree to a deal.
“He should just go away. They’re a completely incompetent and amateur organisation,” German entrepreneur Buettner said on Tuesday.
So basically, "Freestyle chess" (also known as Chess960) is a chess variant where the pieces on the back rank (i.e. everything except the pawns) starts in a random order. Magnus has been playing this a lot lately, because he's bored of regular chess theory - and now, he's involved in running an organisation, that wants to run its own Freestyle Chess World Championship (even though FIDE already runs its own championship for this version of chess).
Personally, although FIDE hasn't exactly been perfect, I am more inclined to side with them than with Magnus (who, frankly, has become increasingly petulant lately - with the jeans thing being just one example!).
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