“Freestyle chess” is a new name for the variant where the back rank pieces are placed randomly, so as to make the game more a test of skill and imagination than memory of book openings. It used to be called Fischer Random after its inventor, then Chess 960 or Chess 9LX after the number of possible starting positions.
Elite grandmasters like it, and this week a $200,000 event took place at the Weissenhaus resort on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast. Half of the eight competitors, including the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, and the world champion, Ding Liren, were over-30s, while the other four were under-21s.
The rapid section, to decide the classical knockout pairings, was a disaster for Ding, who was struggling with health issues and lost seven games in a row. Levon Aronian beat him in 18 moves with a queen sacrifice.
Carlsen had prepared at a training camp in Spain along with England’s Olympiad gold medallist, David Howell, but made a slow start, although he won a 19-move brilliancy of his own.
The event then moved into its knockout rounds, where Carlsen lost his first game to Alireza Firouzja before recovering to win 3-1, while Ding’s dire form continued. The under-21s could produce only one semi-finalist, where the pairings were Nodirbek Abdusattorov v Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana v Aronian, who decided his quarter-final by another miniature shown in this week’s puzzle.
Carlsen won the tournament and the $60,000 first prize after three hours play on Friday when he gradually outplayed Caruana and converted two extra pawns in a 44-move rook ending. Aronian, the oldest competitor at 41, defeated Abdusattorov to finish third while Ding was last of eight.
The sponsor, Jan Buettner, said that the event would return to Germany in February 2025, when there could also be a Freestyle Tour, with events in the US in May, India in August, and Cape Town, South Africa, in November.
Will chess fans be convinced? Decide for yourself by tuning in to Friday’s Carlsen v Caruana final. Game two starts at noon GMT, lasts 3-5 hours, after which a 1-1 score leads to rapid, blitz and Armageddon tiebreaks.
Next Monday the second Cambridge international tournament starts, and with it an opportunity for the eight-time British champion Michael Adams to continue an extraordinary sequence.
The Cornishman, 52, won the inaugural Cambridge event in February 2023, then followed up with the English Championship in May, the British Championship in July, the World Senior Teams gold medal in September, the individual World Senior 50+ in November, and the London Classic in December.
Six important tournaments, six first prizes, 54 games, 34 wins, 20 draws, no defeats. Bobby Fischer and Carlsen made famously long unbeaten runs in their 20s, but to do it in your 50s is something else. The run was achieved in Adams’s classical, orthodox style, plus knowing when to push for a win and when to save energy. Cambridge 2024 will be a fresh challenge, as the entry is stronger than last year, with several 2500+ GMs in the field.
Cambridge will also be significant for a quartet of rising British talents. Shreyas Royal, 15, needs a third and final norm plus a handful of rating points to become England’s youngest ever GM, but still has to earn it. The 4NCL league, where he plays top board for Wood Green Youth, could also be an opportunity, but with 3.5/6 there he still has work to do.
Frederick Waldhausen Gordon, 13, already has one IM result, and may soon be Scotland’s No 1. He is in good form and won a fine game in last weekend’s 4NCL against GM John Emms.
It was a well analysed Semi-Tarrasch, where Gordon’s 17 Qd3 innovated over the normal 17 Qf4, and which, after a few inaccuracies, he won thematically by combining an advance of his d pawn with threats to the black king.
Supratit Banerjee, who has just transferred from Scotland to England, is based near Coulsdon, Surrey. The nine-year-old is in contention to be world No 1 in his age group, and gained 137 rating points last month with promising results at Hastings, where he drew with the strong IM Ameet Ghasi, and in 4NCL events.
Bodhana Sivanandan set historic records last month with her dazzling performance at the European Women’s Blitz in Monaco. The eight-year-old’s results in slower classical games are less striking, but last weekend at the 4NCL she scored a good win against a 2000+ opponent, with 41 Nxe6! leading to a crushing attack.
Chess in Schools and Communities, which has introduced chess to tens of thousands of pupils, as well as organising the London Classic and working in prisons, has just published a new report on its activities. It’s an impressive read.
Fide celebrates its centenary this year. Commemorative events began this week with a global torch journey, launched by Vishy Anand, Judit Polgar, and others, from the 2022 Olympiad in India to the 2024 Olympiad in Budapest.
3907: 1 Rxd6+! and Black resigned. If cxd6 2 Bb6+ Kc8 3 Rc4+ and mates. If Rxd6 2 Rxe8+ Kxe8 3 Qxg8+ and 4 Qxb8 wins.
