Carlsen and FIDE Are At Each Others' Throats Again—And Now Nakamura's Piling In

It has been quiet recently on the chess players rowing in public with FIDE front—but as always with this crazy game, festering unresolved issues are never far from the surface.

And so it's proved yet again over the last few days as FIDE has taken another battering, this time from the top two players in the world. For a sport's governing body, that's not a great look.

GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Hikaru Nakamura have both been sending pelters FIDE's way from the sidelines of the latest Freestyle Chess event, which is kicking off in South Africa.

Deeper Row?

This may be no accident, given previous antipathy between FIDE and Freestyle Chess. Freestyle, after all, did appear to challenge FIDE's authority last year when it tried to set up its own world championship. If you're wondering who's behind this Freestyle venture; it was founded by the German businessman Jan Henric Buettner, along with Carlsen.

The latest row stirred up by Carlsen and piled into by Nakamura—and not without justification—is all about qualification for the all-important FIDE Candidates tournament. Should the eight players competing to challenge the World Champion be comprised of the eight highest-rated players who want to go?

Carlsen and Nakamura seem to think so. And they're not alone.

That's not what the rules say, however. This year Nakamura is the only player who qualified via his rating, which currently stands at 2810. After Carlsen, he's the highest rated player in the world and the only other currently above 2800.

Surely he should go to the FIDE Candidates and compete for the right to challenge for GM Gukesh D's world title (which vacated by Carlsen after another row with FIDE)? Correct. Everyone agrees.

But it wasn't as simple as that. Nakamura needed to go on his own mini-quest to rack up enough games to meet FIDE's 40-game eligibility requirement.

It Gets Wild

Carlsen believes this was unnecessary, and he's also concerned about the other players in the top eight who've missed out.

“The fact that Nakamura is going around playing these — as he calls it himself, referring to something I said many years ago, Mickey Mouse tournaments in order to qualify for the Candidates, in order to play the 40 games that are required by FIDE.

"I think that’s absolutely… it’s wild. It’s insane, why would you require somebody who’s very clearly good enough to play in the Candidates, why would you require him to play these tournaments which he doesn’t really have time for? Well, you want to have the best players in the Candidates and he’s clearly one of them."

Carlsen's comments have re-ignited the debate about how players get to the Candidates, which is meant to be the meeting of the true elite. Shouldn't all the places been awarded on the basis of rating? So the Candidates is guaranteed to have the top players competing?

Currently there is a variety of routes to qualification, which include winning the FIDE Grand Swiss, or finishing third at the FIDE World Cup. But is this multi-faceted (and fiendishly complicated) qualification process produce the best results?

GMs Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi and Alireza Firouzja—three players everyone wanted to see travel to Cyprus next year—will all miss out. Keymar, particularly, has been in sparkling form this year but not quite got over the line in the events that mattered for the Candidates.

Not everyone can be there, as FIDE's CEO Emil Sutovsky pointed out on X.

He took aim at Carlsen's comments saying: "'Clearly good enough' is a bad definition to select a player in FIDE Candidates. Unless we return to wild card system in Candidates (not under my watch!), it can’t work.

"'He doesn’t really have time for' is more alarming though. Really? We are talking about qualification to the most important tournament in two years.

"How come a top pro, who is supposed to qualify by rating that proves he is still a very top pro, does not have time? It is wrong on so many levels.

"The requirements were actually very modest – and in a hindsight too modest, easy to game. Our fault. But to call a requirement to actually play chess 'wild' is wild."

Sutovsky is an official who likes to defend his organisation—and decisions he's been involved in—forcefully.

Significantly, Sutovsky did say he would move to "eliminate" the ratings pathway altogether.

"Going forwards, I’ll submit a proposal, eliminating rating spot altogether towards Candidates-2028. World Cup, Grand Swiss, FIDE Circuit, and now Total World Championship Tour will be the paths to qualify."

Presumably, not the reaction Carlsen was looking for.

That's where Nakamura dived in, using his preferred medium: the YouTube ramble. But as always, he made some excellent points.

Nakamura launched into Sutovsky saying he's behaving unprofessionally by publicly taking shots at both him and Carlsen on social media, and also pointed out (again) that he earns way more from content creation than classical chess and says this is FIDE’s failure.

"If you are the CEO, do your job. Get more sponsors," he said.

Nakamura's Gripe

Nakamura went on to say it was FIDE's leadership that drove Carlsen away and is now antagonising him as well.

"It feels like he [Sutovsky] is consistently trying to antagonise Magnus or me," Nakamura said.

According to Nakamura, the "hostile environment" created by FIDE is a main reason he does not intend to continue playing much classical chess.

"I don’t have to deal with this nonsense," he said, adding: "Why would I ever want to do anything with FIDE?”

So the chess world is warring again. The fact it came out of South Africa where the Freestyle Chess Tour is restarting may or may not be a coincidence. But clearly there is something going on in the background.

What good is coming from this?

Carlsen and Nakamura seem to be on relatively good terms recently.

They are, at least, both singing from the same hymn sheet on this issue. It's good to see (although we did love their rivalry!).