Magnus Carlsen launches Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, India to host event in 2024

Magnus Carlsen is starting a new chapter in the history of chess. Just a few weeks after the inaugural Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge in Germany proved to be a great success, Carlsen and his partner, German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner are set to expand the competition into a brand-new ‘tour format.’ India will be the first stop on Carlsen’s ‘tour format’ of the special chess tournament. The duo have also extended an invitation to the best chess players in the world to join their newly established Freestyle Chess Players Club (FCPC).

Known as the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, the new chess tournament is scheduled to begin later this year in November in India and would feature a massive prize pool of $500,000 (about INR 4 crore) for the Indian leg. Five different continents, ideally, are to host a series of tournaments each year.

The next leg of the tour will take players to Germany’s Weissenhaus from February 7–14, 2025, following the first leg in India, according to a press release issued by Carlsen and Buettner. “We are currently planning four to five such tournaments per year. Our next event has already been scheduled for India from November 10-17, 2024”, Buettner confirmed.

Apart from Australia in 2026, the organizers are planning to hold the remaining tournaments in New York, Cartagena (Colombia), and Cape Town. The first-ever Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge was conducted last month in northern Germany, and five-time classical chess world champion Carlsen emerged victorious.

Buettner talked about the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam and expressed his desire to make it a commercially successful tournament in the years to come. “My personal goal for the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam is nothing short of making it as commercially successful as iconic sports events like the ATP for tennis, PGA for golf, and Formula 1 for motorsport,” Buettner wrote in his welcoming letter to all 25 FCPC members.

Along with the world’s best players behind Magnus Carlsen, including Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Nodirbek Abusattorov, Ding Liren, Alireza Firouzja, Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Wei Yi, new members comprise Indian Grand Masters Arjun Erigaisi and Viswanathan Anand.