World Chess Weekly: Big Chess Organisers Vie For Visibility
This was the week where the big chess organisers went head-to-head in an attempt to get you excited.
No sooner had GM Magnus Carlsen secured his 21st world title by picking up the first FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, than news came in from Hamburg that the main instigators are bringing it back for a second go.
Freestyle Chess, the company co-founded by German businessman Jan Henric Buettner, will reprise the Freestyle Chess World Championship in 2027 with Buettner's plush Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort confirmed as its venue.
FIDE are also invited too, of course.
Buettner's Event
The freestyle title tournament going ahead again was never a gimme, given the struggle Freestyle Chess had to get big sponsors on board.
Buettner, CEO of Freestyle Chess, and Arkady Dvorkovich, President of FIDE, both issued predictable statements telling us how excited they are and how important it is for the game.
In fact, that's not true. The statements issued by them were strangely dry and lacking in die Vorfreude. Has the bromance cooled?
Dvorkovich's emphasis, naturally when you're talking about a world title event, was on compliance.
He said: "The 2026 championship marked an important milestone as the first official Freestyle Chess World Championship, recognized by FIDE. By confirming Weissenhaus as the stage for 2027, we are reinforcing the institutional framework of the title and supporting the continued growth of this format within the international chess ecosystem, in compliance with FIDE's rules and regulations."
Buettner was a touch more upbeat, focusing on sustainability.
He said: "The decision to return to Weissenhaus in 2027 reflects our commitment to building a stable and credible world championship cycle for Freestyle Chess. Continuity of venue and structure allows us to focus on sporting quality and long-term development."
Neither really sold it to us as something to look forward to.
Next year will also see the first 2027 Women's FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship. Why there was only a Women's section exhibition match this year, we don't know.
It seems the Freestyle Chess Tour, which took place last year, will become a series of qualifiers for the main event. It starts with the Grenke Freestyle Chess Open, to be held April 2 to 6, in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Rosenstein's Event
There is another eye-wateringly wealthy chess organiser on the scene who has links to Germany and a strange predilection for pouring money into the game: Wadim Rosenstein.
Rosenstein is the organiser who, almost out of nowhere, put together a world-class tournament called the WR Chess Masters and hosted it in his hometown of Düsseldorf.
He then persuaded FIDE to sanction a new team event for chess, the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Team Championships.
On Thursday, FIDE announced that the fourth edition will head to Hong Kong from June 17 to 21. Previous events in Dusseldorf, Astana and London have all had star-studded line-ups.
Since its launch, WR Chess, Rosenstein's team—unsurprisingly—has dominated the event. Already the WR team has announced its key players including GMs Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Hou Yifan. It looks a hard team to beat.
And The Rest
There were also tournament announcements this week from another new world championship organiser Norway Chess. The now Oslo based outfit, after its recent move from Stavanger, confirmed GM Wesley So will join its line-up for this year's Norway Chess tournament.
The Prague Masters is also nearly upon us and the former wild-haired bad-boy of chess GM Hans Niemann (who's now shaven-headed) was confirmed as its final entrant.
This year's super-charged edition will take place in the Don Giovanni Hotel from February 25 to March 6.