Random piece positions, 960 possible starts: What is freestyle chess, which led to Magnus Carlsen clashing with FIDE?

The matter was amicably resolved ahead of the start of the glamorous FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship in New York. Here is all you need to know about the controversy.

First, what is freestyle chess?

Freestyle chess is a variant of chess that was popularised by the legendary Bobby Fischer way back in 1996. It’s chess with a twist.

In regular chess, positions of chess pieces on the back ranks are fixed: the rooks are stationed on the corners, the knights start on the b and g files, the bishops on the c and f files. Both kings are on e file squares while the queens start on d squares.

But in freestyle chess, the positions of these pieces are randomised at the start of the game, although the eight pawns in front of these pieces start where they usually do. This format is meant to promote creativity from players. The unique opening position in each game eliminates all the opening theories which players like Fischer and Carlsen say make chess very theoretic and bookish in the first phase.

Players are forced to navigate uncharted territory from the first move itself rather than having the luxury of playing out the first series of moves based on preparation cooked by their team. In total, there are 960 possible starting positions on the board when the minor and major pieces at the back ranks are shuffled.

It must be noted that the pieces still retain their regular characteristics in action: rooks move in straight lines, bishops cut across the board in sweeping diagonal movements, and the knights make sickle-like veering motions and retain the ability to hop over pieces.

Over the years, freestyle chess has earned many names: Fischer Random Chess, Chess 9LX and Chess 960.

What is the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour?

Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is a series of five chess events, started by Germany’s Jan Henric Buettner, which will be held in 2025 in cities like Weissenhaus, Paris, New York, New Delhi, and Cape Town.

The time control used at the five Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour events will be the same as in classical chess rather than the rapid or blitz formats.

Last year, Carlsen won the Freestyle Chess tournament and had called the event “a dream come true” — a sentiment he rarely expresses after winning other chess events.

For Carlsen, the combination of the umpteen possibilities provided by freestyle chess, and classical time controls — 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game in addition to an extra 30 seconds for each move — is an exciting prospect.

“I definitely enjoyed the Freestyle Chess event that we had in February even more because it was held in a classical time control. When you’re playing positions that are unfamiliar to the players from the start, it’s good to have a bit of extra time. I generally feel that faster chess is a huge part of the future. But I also hope that variants (like freestyle) can be something that you can play at longer time controls,” Carlsen had told The Indian Express in an interview in May this year.

What did Carlsen and Nakamura allege?

Carlsen had alleged in an interview on the Take Take Take app: “There was this whole thing where FIDE actively wanted to… they were actually going after players as well to get them not to sign with Freestyle Grand Slam Tour, basically threatening them that they wouldn’t be able to play the World Championship cycle if they played in Freestyle.”

Nakamura went on to add that he had told Carlsen in a private conversation that “if push came to shove” he would also opt to play in the Freestyle Grand Slam over the World Championship cycle events.

On his YouTube channel, Nakamura said: “FIDE said things where we were put in a situation where potentially we’d have to choose between playing in events at the Candidates cycle and playing in the Freestyle World Championship.”

If Carlsen and Nakamura were to leave FIDE events for the Freestyle World Championship, they would augur a shakeup in the world of chess probably not seen since the 1993 split which saw World Champion Gary Kasparov leave FIDE to start his own Classical World Chess Championship. The two chess world championships would be reconciled only in 2006.

Who will be playing in the Freestyle Events this year?

The organisers have confirmed most of the line-up for the first event of the year in the Grand Slam Tour which will be held in Germany’s Weissenhaus from February 7 to 14.

This will include two former world champions Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand (who is a Deputy President in FIDE) besides the current world champion Gukesh D. They will be joined by World No 2 Fabiano Caruana, No 3 Hikaru Nakamura, Uzbek prodigy Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja, Levon Aronian, and Vincent Keymer. The 10th player will be selected from the open qualification.

But the freestyle format’s — and the Grand Slam Tour’s — lodestar is clearly Carlsen. “I plan to play as much as I can. I can’t wait to play [freestyle chess],” Carlsen has said about the tour in the past.