R Praggnanandhaa will miss the first event of the new Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, which will take place in Weissenhaus, Germany, this month. This comes after his biggest win yet at the Tata Steel Chess Championship in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
R Praggnanandhaa to Miss Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Germany
Praggnanandhaa didn’t qualify for the inaugural Freestyle event because he didn’t make it through the Freestyle online qualification tournament last month. As a result, he won’t be part of the event in Germany, which will feature 10 players selected through different criteria.
The Freestyle Tour, led by German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner and backed by world number one and five-time champion Magnus Carlsen, is set to start after a heated and controversial dispute with FIDE. The tour will be played in the Chess960 variant, also called the Fischer Random Variant, where the pieces on the back rank are arranged randomly.
Magnus Carlsen’s Support for Fischer Random Chess and Disputes with FIDE
Carlsen has been a strong supporter of using the Fischer Random Variant in chess, seeing it as an alternative to the classical format. He believes that chess supercomputers have made high-level games too predictable. However, he has had disagreements with the governing body FIDE, especially regarding Freestyle’s right to crown its own world champion.
The only Indian player who will be in Germany for the first round of the five-legged Freestyle Tour is world champion Gukesh D. He secured his spot by winning the World Chess Championship last year, defeating China’s Ding Liren.
Indian chess legend Viswanathan Anand was also set to take part but withdrew because of his role as deputy president of FIDE. Praggnanandhaa, alongside Anand, became only the second Indian to win at Tata Steel, securing his victory with a blitz tiebreak against Gukesh in Wijk aan Zee.
