The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is set to commence on February 7 at the Weissenhaus Resort in Wangels, Germany, with organizers aiming to move past recent controversies. In a surprising turn of events, Freestyle Chess did not obtain official recognition from FIDE for its world championship tournament, leading to a significant uproar on social media. This situation prompted an open letter from Freestyle Chess, along with interviews featuring Magnus Carlsen and FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky. Both the open letter and Carlsen's statements publicly criticized FIDE, while Carlsen, who co-owns Freestyle Chess, called for the resignation of FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich. In an interview with the Take Take Take application, which he also co-owns, Carlsen disclosed that younger players have expressed a desire to participate in Freestyle Chess events, yet their federations have shown uncertainty.

This uncertainty stemmed from the world championship recognition issue, as FIDE had issued a waiver prohibiting players from participating in a non-recognized world championship. To mitigate the controversy, Freestyle Chess has removed references to the world championship from its rules, regulations, and official website. D Gukesh, who is recognized as the reigning World Champion, has also arrived at the venue and is scheduled to compete on Friday.

D Gukesh drops verdict on FIDE vs Freestyle Chess controversy

In an interview with ChessBase India, the top-ranked player in India shared his thoughts on the recent controversy between FIDE and Freestyle Chess. The grandmaster stated, “I am here to play and am content with any format or time control. My focus is solely on performing my best in each game. Ultimately, my priority is to excel in chess, and other matters are secondary. I hope for greater clarity within the chess community and that everything proceeds smoothly, but my main desire is simply to play chess.”

Later in the discussion, he was again prompted to express his views on classical versus Chess960 tournaments. This time, Gukesh provided a more direct response regarding his stance on Freestyle tournaments, which are based on Chess960.

“I believe that while Chess960 is an interesting experiment, it will not replace classical chess. The Classical World Chess Championship cycle holds far greater significance than Chess960, so I am open to experimenting with it,” he remarked.

The initial leg of the tournament in Germany features an impressive lineup, including Gukesh, World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja, Levon Aronian, Vincent Keymer, Vladimir Fedoseev, and Javokhir Sindarov. Indian chess icon Viswanathan Anand was also scheduled to compete as a wildcard but withdrew following the controversy and Carlsen’s criticism of his role as FIDE deputy president.

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