Chess: Carlsen meets world champion Gukesh after Freestyle truce called

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between the world governing body Fide and Jan-Henric Buettner, the founder and chief of Freestyle Chess, the disagreement has since been quietly pushed aside by an uneasy truce.

G'day. The world championship on the FIDE, which starts at 1pm GMT on Friday, February 7, can be definitely referred to as a world championship. After a post from Carlsen on X, an open letter from Buettner, and a statement from FIDE, the 2025 Freestyle circuit is going ahead with the exact same format as a Grand Slam event.

which makes it more powerful than Fide's 2024-25 Candidates and title match.

Weissenhaus kicks off with a 10-player all-play-all over the weekend, cutting to the top eight horse-racers on Saturday. These eight will then compete in knockout matches over the next three days. The qualifier will be played at a rapid-fire pace, with 10 minutes on the clock for the entire game, plus an extra 10 seconds added on for every move. In contrast, the knock-out rounds will be played at a more leisurely classical rate.

In Freestyle, also known as Fischer Random or Chess 96, the settings of the back row pieces are mixed up, which stops people using well-known opening moves. Top-level players like it because it means they don't have to prepare for hours beforehand, but it's not often played by club players or in online games.

Buettner's events are going ahead to Paris in April, New York or Vegas in July, Delhi in September, and Cape Town in December. Along with the major prize pool of $750,000 per event, Freestyle is giving a fee to GMs rated 2725 or higher who are not selected as one of the top 10 contenders for each leg.

Freestyle aims to snag huge online followings, drawing on the Norwegian broadcasting model where Carlsen's games provide the base for a two-hour TV show.

However, Buettner's goal of breaching budget by the end of 2026 might be optimistic. Chess.com, which claims over 10 million daily active users and more than 140 million members globally, rarely hits 10,000 viewers for its live streaming of major tournaments. Chess enthusiasts overwhelmingly prefer competing over spectating. Notably, Freestyle is hardly ever used at the grassroots level, where novices and ordinary players prefer the familiarity of playing with recognised opening patterns.

Gukesh was edged out of first prize in a tie-break last Sunday after leading almost all the way at the Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee - the "chess Wimbledon" - in the 18-year-old's first event since becoming the youngest ever world champion.

Wijk aan Zee was a significant breakthrough for the rising gen. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, who got the better of Gukesh 2-1 in speed games after they tied for first on 8.5/13, Uzbekistan's Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who finished third half a point adrift, and Arjun Erigaisi, who won crucial games in the final two rounds, are all now ranked among the world's top eight in the live ratings. This mob of four are all 21 or younger.

By Black’s queen and rooks on the f-file.

was a round highlight of the tourney after the Yank created a small advantage, then castled long to add to the squeeze. Caruana could've gained more with 26. Rd6! followed by Nc5 and Qc3, but instead drifted and let Black land a crushing counter-attack.

Stuart Reuben, who croaked on Tuesday at 85, was the top bloke for putting on chess competitions in England for a fair few decades and played a crucial role in the dado explosion of the 1970s. His idea was the weekend Swiss tournament, which let heaps of people play, and the intense competition chucked out a hardened group of players who in the 70s and 80s were No.2 in the world after the Russians.

Reuben organised and directed several major international tournaments. Fide, the global chess body, awarded him the titles of International Arbiter and International Organiser. He was always approachable and ready to give friendly advice, as well as being a lively storyteller.

Fair dinkum, he was even better at poker, which he played professionally and about which he wrote several tinnies, mate. He held a ripper of a time in several key positions for the English and British Chess Federations, and was a top bloke when it came to knowing the rules of chess.

1....Qd7! and White gave in. If 2 Rxg6 (any other moves from the attacked rook won't help either) Rh1+! 2 Kxh1 Qh3+ ... and then 3....Rf1 and checkmate.