Magnus Carlsen on why the future of chess lies in freestyle
Time, at the sport’s highest levels, for less computer-assisted rote learning and more creativity
ON FEBRUARY 7th the inaugural tournament of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour will begin on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast. My anticipation is immense. At the Weissenhaus Resort, the world’s top players will come together, among them Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Dommaraju Gukesh, the newly crowned world chess champion, who is 18 years old. Yet the most compelling aspect of the grand slam isn’t the venue or even the participants. It’s the format. We will be playing Freestyle Chess, a variant I hold dear and view as the future of the sport.
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