
World no.1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen was thrown out of the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championship 2024 in New York on Friday for violating the International Chess Federation’s (FIDE) dress code by wearing a jeans. Initially Carlsen was fined USD 200 and was asked by the chief arbiter Alex Holowczak to change his dress after the eighth round, but the Norwegian refused, thus forcing the sport’s global body to disqualify him.
Accusing the FIDE in every possible way, Carlsen walked out of the tournament, calling it a ‘matter of principle’. While many would take it as just a jeans controversy but there is much more to the Carlsen vs FIDE feud.
The battle between Carlsen and FIDE started a long ago. The 34-year-old has been vocal against FIDE, accusing the world body of threating players not to participate in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, started by Germany’s Jan Henric Buettner.
According to American grandmaster Hans Niemann, Carlsen might have stake in the Freestyle chess tour, which he wanted to make it his own way. With the FIDE reportedly threatening players that they wouldn’t be allowed to play in World Championship cycle if played in Freestyle chess tour, that might had irked Carlsen.
“You know, the reason why he’s doing this is just to discredit FIDE, so that his tour can be labelled as the official world championship, and they just raised 12 million dollars, right?” Niemann told in his YouTube channel ‘Take Take Take’.
“It’s a big sort of investment, and how can you… I presume Magnus might be a shareholder in the company, just like he might be as a shareholder in Chess.com. Well, there was a merger, so I would, you know, I’ve gone on a bit, but this, in my opinion, was a coordinated and planned thing. It’s not some random thing that happened.
“And this is the perfect way for them to discredit FIDE, and once they discredit FIDE, then they can call whatever they want their world championship, right? Because there’s this sort of battle,” added Niemann.
American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura too backed Carlsen’s comments on FIDE threatening players not to take part in the Freestyle Grand Slam Chess tour and opined that players should have the liberty to chose what tournaments they want to play.
What is Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour?
Freestyle chess was started by Henric Buettner and Carlsen in 2024 and will have its first Grand Slam tour in 2025. In freestyle chess, the setup of pieces on the back row is randomized before the game, thus eliminating the need for traditional chess opening theory. It also makes every game new from the start.
The first edition of Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour will have five tournaments across the world – Germany (February 7-14), France (April 8-15), USA (July 17-24), India (September 17-24) and South Africa (December 5-12).
What is the problem with FIDE?
One of the major reason why players don’t really want to play FIDE events was money. According to Nakamura, FIDE events don’t offer much money. Instead, a player makes more money from competing tournaments which aren’t under FIDE’s umbrella such as the Grand Chess Tour.
Money in FIDE events come from specific events like the Candidates and World Championships, but these tournaments are really specific ones. Nakamura stated that FIDE seems Freestyle chess as a threat and wants to have all the power as the governing body of chess.
While it may look like the start of a battle between FIDE and Carlsen’s Freestyle chess on a public forum, Niemann opined the Norwegian has won the initial PR battle.
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