 "Freestyle Chess Grand Slam will see D Gukesh face off against Magnus Carlsen for first time since becoming the world champion. Image: FIDE")
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, which starts on 7 February (Friday) in Germany, presents the first opportunity to see the new world champion D Gukesh take on world No.1 Magnus Carlsen . The 18-year-old Grandmaster from India, Gukesh, won the World Chess Championship last year by beating Ding Liren. Carlsen had held the World Chess Championship title since 2013 but decided against defending it in 2022.
The Gukesh vs Carlsen match is seen as a battle between the two best chess players currently. Carlsen said that he is looking forward to his match against Gukesh and world No.3 Hikaru Nakamura and he will also be trying to beat the youngsters.
“I’m very much looking forward to playing the classical world champion, Gukesh. Obviously, I look forward to playing everybody, but getting a chance to play Hikaru Nakamura here… last year there was a bit of a generational battle. I’ll be trying a little bit harder to beat the youngsters,” he told ChessBase India in an interview.
What is Freestyle Chess?
The first leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour will be played from 7-14 February in Weissenhaus, Germany. The tournament will include some of the best chess Grandmasters from across the globe including World No.2 Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattarov, Alireza Firouzja, Levon Aronian, Vincent Keymer, Vladimir Fedoseev and Javokhir Sindarov besides Carlsen, Gukesh and Nakamura.
The tournament will be played in Freestyle Chess format which is also known as Chess960 or Fischer Random Chess. In the Freestyle Chess format, the pieces on the back rank are randomised in the starting position. The pieces during a Freestyle Chess game, however, move the same way as a normal chess match.
Freestyle Chess eliminates the possibility of remembering an opening due to randomised-back ranks and promotes creativity. However, it also poses a challenge for the players to prepare as they are unaware of what they will be facing.
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View AllCarlsen said that preparation for Freestyle Chess matches will become easier once the number of games among GMs increases.
“Most of the preparation now is based on engine games, because those are the high level games that sort of exist,” Carlsen said. “So I think as we get more human, classical freestyle games, it will be a lot easier to prepare. But you know, for now, we just use the information that we have.”
Carlsen shares his preparation for Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is being organised by Carlsen co-owned Freestyle Chess Operations. They had also organised the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge in 2024. The Grand Slam Tour will consist of five legs with the final taking place in December 2025.
Talking about his preparations, Carlsen said that, unlike last year, he will enter the tournament in a more relaxed state.
“Last year I did a lot of lot of training. I was playing training games with David Howell and Peter (Carlsen’s coach Peter Heine Nielsen), and I were working on other openings. This year I’ve done a lot less,” he shared.
“I felt like last year I was really overthinking in the first few games. It felt like I had sort of too much random knowledge and didn’t know how to use it. So I think I managed to sort of recalibrate a little bit better during the tournament. But this year I’ve tried to do it a little bit differently. I’ve played Freestyle Friday on chess.com and that has been good training, just to get a little bit of practice. Otherwise, you know, I’ve looked at some charts about openings, like, where did pieces go, and so on. But I guess I’ll try and get some practice in as well.”
Carlsen has often said that he is not interested in classical chess but feels that Freestyle Chess under classical time controls will make the sport more attractive to younger people. He hopes the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour will prove to be a massive success.