No Gukesh and Praggnanandhaa, only one Indian to compete at FIDE World Freestyle Chess Championship

Only one Indian will be in contention to become the FIDE World Freestyle Chess Champion when the tournament takes place next month in Germany with big names like world champion D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa not being able to make a cut.

Arjun Erigaisi will be India’s only representative among the eight participants at the newly-introduced tournament. FIDE and Freestyle Chess ended their feud recently to collaborate and the FIDE Freestyle Chess Championship was thus announced.

Why only one Indian qualified for Freestyle Championship?

The qualification for the tournament was done on the basis of rankings in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour which took place last year. The best seven players from that tour automatically advanced to the championship. Erigaisi, who was fifth in the rankings, made the cut while other big names like Praggnanandhaa and Gukesh were left out.

Praggnanandhaa had finished 15th while the reigning world champion stood at the 19th spot in the final standings of the Freestyle Chess Tour.

Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer, and Javokhir Sindarov all qualified for the world championship thanks to their rankings on last year’s tour. Freestyle Chess nominated Hans Niemann, due to his outstanding performance in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Las Vegas.

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The last spot was decided through a play-in on January 14 and 15. Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan won the online tournament that attracted more than 100 titled players from around the world.

Abdusattarov was up against India’s Pranav Venkatesh in the deciding game of the play-in tournament and emerged as winner to take the final spot, limiting the Indian participation in the freestyle championship to one.

The 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship takes place on February 13-15 at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort in Germany. Eight players will compete for the title of Freestyle Chess world champion, with one player determined by the Play-in, a nine-round Swiss followed by a knockout on January 14-15.