Behind All The Glitz And Glamour, There's A Tug-Of-War Going On For The Biggest Star In Chess
It's all too easy for GM Magnus Carlsen right now. He turns up, he wins, then goes home. No wonder everyone wants a piece of him.
Having let classical chess take a back seat this year, influenced by his on-going beef with the game's governing body FIDE, Norway's world number-one has spent much of 2025 turning his attention another form of chess: freestyle, aka the Fischer Random or Chess360 variant.
And as freestyle starts to take off, Carlsen has made damn sure he dominates at that too.
On Tuesday the five-time classical chess champion picked up the first Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour crown with two days to spare.
Carlsen only needed to reach the semi-finals at Grootbos to clinch the inaugural season championship and the $100,000 bonus prize. Ok, it wasn't completely smooth, but no-one doubted he'd do it.
Carlsen's Competition
Freestyle Chess is the second big venture outside the auspices of FIDE that Carlsen has thrown his weight behind.
During lockdown the game's one true superstar helped spark the explosion in online chess with the launch of the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour, which became the Champions Chess Tour.
The CCT started well but has fallen back in importance, although t
As for Freestyle Chess, it started with huge ambitions. The organisers—led by the German businessman Jan Henric Buettner—initially tried to call it a world title tournament, until FIDE intervened.
Legal letters followed and Freestyle Chess eventually backed down.
But in the absence of anything else, Freestyle Chess probably can claim that top Chess360 tournament in the world honour—although until further notice that remains strictly unofficial.
Total Vs Freestyle
Instead, FIDE in partnership with Norway Chess has introduced the new multi-discipline $2.7 million Total Chess World Championship Tour which will debut in 2026.
Part of the reason is, surely, an attempt to entice Carlsen back into the fold with the lure of becoming FIDE's official “Total Chess Player”. Carlsen has long argued the classical World Championship does not find the best all-round player.
The two tournaments will go head-to-head in 2026, although no-one will actually state that. Is there the appetite among both fans and the players for two big non-traditional chess events like this? We will find out.
On Tuesday, not meaning to overshadow Carlsen's Freestyle crown with its own hype, FIDE released details of the Total event's qualification pathways.
It does look intriguing and will be another title Carlsen will surely be aiming to add to his collection. So far in 2025 alone, Carlsen has already won:
- Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown
- Esports World Cup
- SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia
- Norway Chess
- Classic Grenke Freestyle Open
- Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Paris
Then there's the World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Doha straight after Christmas which Carlsen has already stated he intends to target.
The world is warned there won't be a repeat of last year's "Jeansgate" controversy and he's unlikely to agree to share a crown again.
Meanwhile, the South Africa Finals—and the $200,000 winner’s purse—remain to be decided. Carlsen’s route to the semi-finals was anything but smooth.
The 35-year-old started his match against his former world title challenger GM Fabiano Caruana with painful blunder and a loss.
But that just created the kind of situation Carlsen lives for. Facing a must-win situation with Black, Carlsen forced tiebreaks, won the first blitz game and closed the match 3-1 with a second win.
Man-of-the-moment GM Javokhir Sindarov, the newly-minted World Cup winner, continued his momentum from the round-robin stage.
The Uzbek calmly disposed of GM Parham Maghsoodloo, who scored 0/7 in the preliminaries, despite the Iranian building up what seemed a winning position in game one.
Sindarov survived, turned the game around and won game two as well, finishing the match 2–0.
GM Vincent Keymer, another of 2025's breakout stars, became the second player to advance. After drawing game one against GM Arjun Erigaisi, he took over in game two and converted calmly to reach the semi-finals.
GM Levon Aronian later joined him by defeating GM Hans Niemann. Niemann had been on the ropes in their first game but escaped; Aronian finished the job in the tiebreaks.
Freestyle South Africa continues on Wednesday. Will Carlsen take it easy now he's secured the season title? Absolutely not.