Grandmaster Awonder Liang of USA (Elo 2692), the top seed in the Open chess event of Grenke Classic in Karlsruhe, Germany, withdrew after scoring 3.5 points in four rounds and shifted to the Freestyle event of the same festival where Magnus Carlsen and world’s elite players were playing concurrently.
His reward? A pairing with Carlsen in Round 6 after winning the fifth round in the Freestyle. It is just one of the examples where Carlsen and promoters of Freestyle chess (also known as Fischer Random and Chess 960) are exploring new possibilities in the 64-square sport.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel.
The German organisers allowed players from the normal Open section to shift to the Freestyle section by carrying forward the points they attained in the normal section (the reverse was not allowed) till the fourth round. Sven Noppes, the tournament director at Grenke, told TOI that despite the innovations, the games played in normal format would be still counted for the FIDE rating and the event remains a part of the FIDE circuit.
It still raises questions about fair play, logic and upsets Buchholz calculations for tiebreakers for the final standings. Carlsen vacated the World championship title after holding it from 2013 to 2023 for skewed ratio of investment and reward. He said he also got bored with classical chess due to its drawish nature, especially the normal version where the starting position is fixed for each game and too much emphasis on preparation and team work.
In contrast, Freestyle chess offers a random starting position 15 minutes prior to the start of each game, thus boosting the value of the over-theboard thinking by taking out computer-aided preparation almost out of the game. Since Freestyle chess began as the event for invited-players only, it lacked democratic flavour.
Hence they started the online qualifying tournaments from this year. Vidit Gujrathi had qualified for the second leg in Paris from that route. World No. 4 Erigaisi Arjun refused to play the qualifiers and missed the German leg. But the organisers had to relent and invited him for the Paris leg.
The Granke classic is another step of the Freestyle organisers to break the shackles and take it to the wider group of players with Carlsen in tow. The meet was easily the biggest ever Freestyle tournament with an array of quality players on display. The winner of the Grenke Freestyle event is to get a qualification spot for the next Freestyle elite leg in Las Vegas in July.
“We decided to hold the event in a stadium where the spectators get a closer view of players. There was a crowd of 5,000-plus for the opening ceremony, including players, making it a carnival atmosphere,” Noppes said. On Freestyle chess, former seven-time National champion and coach Praveen Thipsay said, “It is the way chess should be played now and eventually it shall be.
All FIDE has to do is accept the home preparation aspect and keep chess alive. “There are thousands of strong players who have stopped playing because they can’t match the preparations of their opponents. Those who are good at strategy will do better (in Freestyle) than those who know the theory — that is exact moves worked out with the engine.”
He added that outsourcing the opening is killing the creativity of several players. “That can be restored by making FreeStyle chess as the real chess, at all levels.” Sixteen players above Elo 2700 took part in the Grenke Freestyle event.
His reward? A pairing with Carlsen in Round 6 after winning the fifth round in the Freestyle. It is just one of the examples where Carlsen and promoters of Freestyle chess (also known as Fischer Random and Chess 960) are exploring new possibilities in the 64-square sport.
Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel.
The German organisers allowed players from the normal Open section to shift to the Freestyle section by carrying forward the points they attained in the normal section (the reverse was not allowed) till the fourth round. Sven Noppes, the tournament director at Grenke, told TOI that despite the innovations, the games played in normal format would be still counted for the FIDE rating and the event remains a part of the FIDE circuit.
It still raises questions about fair play, logic and upsets Buchholz calculations for tiebreakers for the final standings. Carlsen vacated the World championship title after holding it from 2013 to 2023 for skewed ratio of investment and reward. He said he also got bored with classical chess due to its drawish nature, especially the normal version where the starting position is fixed for each game and too much emphasis on preparation and team work.
In contrast, Freestyle chess offers a random starting position 15 minutes prior to the start of each game, thus boosting the value of the over-theboard thinking by taking out computer-aided preparation almost out of the game. Since Freestyle chess began as the event for invited-players only, it lacked democratic flavour.
Hence they started the online qualifying tournaments from this year. Vidit Gujrathi had qualified for the second leg in Paris from that route. World No. 4 Erigaisi Arjun refused to play the qualifiers and missed the German leg. But the organisers had to relent and invited him for the Paris leg.
The Granke classic is another step of the Freestyle organisers to break the shackles and take it to the wider group of players with Carlsen in tow. The meet was easily the biggest ever Freestyle tournament with an array of quality players on display. The winner of the Grenke Freestyle event is to get a qualification spot for the next Freestyle elite leg in Las Vegas in July.
“We decided to hold the event in a stadium where the spectators get a closer view of players. There was a crowd of 5,000-plus for the opening ceremony, including players, making it a carnival atmosphere,” Noppes said. On Freestyle chess, former seven-time National champion and coach Praveen Thipsay said, “It is the way chess should be played now and eventually it shall be.
All FIDE has to do is accept the home preparation aspect and keep chess alive. “There are thousands of strong players who have stopped playing because they can’t match the preparations of their opponents. Those who are good at strategy will do better (in Freestyle) than those who know the theory — that is exact moves worked out with the engine.”
He added that outsourcing the opening is killing the creativity of several players. “That can be restored by making FreeStyle chess as the real chess, at all levels.” Sixteen players above Elo 2700 took part in the Grenke Freestyle event.
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