Freestyle Chess: Even legends of game can be caught out of depth in variant

It’s an idiosyncrasy of the Freestyle/Fischer Random chess variant — which is particularly highlighted at the Freestyle Chess events — that even early adopters and legends of the game like Magnus Carlsen and Nakamura constantly find themselves out of depth. Almost like they are re-learning how to walk again after spending years in space. It must be pointed out that compared to the Indian players, Nakamura is no stranger to freestyle chess: he had won the Fischer Random World Championship the last time FIDE had organized the event in 2022 before it was discontinued for lack of sponsors.

Hikaru Nakamura reacts in the opening phase of the quarter-final against Arjun Erigaisi during the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Paris. (Screengrab via Freestyle Chess YouTube)

In classical chess, Nakamura, who calculates moves on the board at the speed of light, would have been able to sniff out a sequence of bad moves in a heartbeat. But in freestyle chess, where players are plunged into the complexities of the middle game from the first move itself, there are too many unknown variables.

For the record, the suggestion from Nepo — which has now been called the Nepo Gambit in chess world — was that after the player with white plays 1.e4, the player with black offers up two sacrificial pawns in successive moves with 1… f5 and 2… g6, which means the player with black ends up being being a pawn down from the second move itself.

“I almost lost out of the opening. I guess the moral story is never trust a Russian,” grinned a relieved Nakamura after emerging unscathed from the game after surviving his initial mis-step. Nakamura had gone on to defeat Arjun the following day to enter the semis.

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“Nepo suggested that it would be fine to play the gambit and Arjun just played the principled line and just took my pawns and asked me ‘Now what am I supposed to do?’ It was just a ridiculous idea. Black’s just worse! Pretty much for the first hour and half of the game, I wanted to get up from my game and go strangle Nepo!”

The “ridiculous” idea that had put Nakamura on a banana peel had been suggested by Nepomniachtchi during the 10-minute window where players with the same colour that day can discuss strategy after learning which of the 959 possible starting positions they will be playing.

For the record, Nepo himself had played a completely different opening line after Keymer had started with 1.d4 (Nepo played 1… d5 and then 2… Nd6, thus emerging out of the opening on a more stable footing than Nakamura and with one additional pawn on the board).

Carlsen, who planted the seed of Freestyle Chess, was also at sea a day later against Nodirbek Abdusattarov in the second leg of the quarter-finals before escaping with a draw. “For two days in a row, I felt so clueless out of the opening phase. Just not figuring it out at all! Then when we got to a faster phase then I actually played well. So it’s been a bit frustrating. Somehow, I escaped… Right now I just cannot figure it out.”

Carlsen quickly added: “But that’s the beauty of the game, it’s supposed to be hard, that’s why we play like this.”