Bengaluru: Within the ongoing energy wrestle between Magnus Carlsen-backed Freestyle Chess and world chess governing physique, Fide, Freestyle Chess promoter and German entrepreneur Jan Buettner has in an open letter alleged that Fide’s objections to it are fuelled by financial pursuits and that the physique doesn’t maintain unique authority over the phrase, “world”.
Magnus Carlsen. (AP)
A major bone of rivalry has been the utilization of the time period ‘World Championship’ for Freestyle occasions. Fide has stayed agency on its stance of holding unique rights over working ‘World Championships in chess. “Let me clarify once again that our tour is not a ‘World Championship’ in the traditional sense…. It is titled ‘Freestyle Grand Slam Chess Tour’. At the end of each year, we crown a champion in Freestyle Chess – a format that evolve in the future, potentially moving beyond Chess960 to other new formats, but not classical chess…The title of ‘world champion’ in this context reflects the unique format of our events, not an attempt to challenge Fide’s traditional World Championship cycle,” Buettner wrote in his open letter addressed to Fide CEO Emil Sutovsky.
The Freestyle Grand Slam Chess Tour is scheduled to carry its first occasion of the yr in Weissenhaus, Germany subsequent month and is meant to have six of the world’s present high 10 gamers in its line-up.
Calling the collaboration between Freestyle Chess and Fide “increasingly strained”, Buettner claimed that Fide president Arkady Dvorkovich’s invitation to Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana to play a Freestyle Chess Summit in Singapore across the time of the World Championship, ended with them being “stonewalled and ignored” upon arrival.
The letter went on to assert that Fide has adopted a “confrontational” stance in direction of gamers, and Freestyle’s willingness to supply $100,000 yearly to the physique as a gesture of goodwill and to keep away from harassment, was rebuffed. Buettner alleged that Fide’s “unjustifiable” demand for $500,000, means that “monetary gain is the primary driver”.
Buettner went on to say that “Freestyle seeks peace not conflict” and that they’re able to contribute $50,000 yearly in order that “players are left undisturbed.”
Hours earlier than Buettner’s open letter, in an explosive put up on X, Fide CEO Sutosvky got here down closely on Freestyle Chess and its ‘leaders’ claiming that Freestyle Chess rode on the “publicity and budget” of the classical World Championship final yr and their very own ambitions of a World Championship immediately “popped up”.
“Why instead of peacefully running your series one starts a battle aiming to split the chess community? Is it a personal ambition or the realisation that ‘World Championship’ sells better or an attempt to prove that this is the World Championship? If so, it won’t work.” Sutovsky alleged that “money is by far the main objective” of the industrial mission run by Freestyle Chess. “You completely neglect the entire chess society, focusing on the interests of a few people and for that sake go to war…We’d love to work with any private project- in particular with ambitious ones…But if you want a war, try us.”