FEBRUARY 12 — A few days ago, there was an announcement that the world’s highest rated chess player Magnus Carlsen had just defeated the newly crowned world champion Gukesh Dommaraju.
Like almost every chess enthusiast, I was ecstatic... until I found out they were playing in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, Weissenhaus 2025 tournament.
Potong stim!
Freestyle chess? Yeah.
First developed by American world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1996, freestyle chess (or Chess960 or Chess360 or Fischer Random Chess) is where the pieces on the back rank are randomly rearranged at the starting point.
Example: Your Queen can be placed next to the Rook, the King can be next to the Bishop, etc.
Every other rule remains the same; all pieces move the same way as Classical chess and you win by capturing your opponent’s King.
What is the impact of this rearrangement (and there is no fixed arrangement, every game can have a different arrangement as long as the pawns don’t change)?
Most critically it removes the factor of pattern recognition often deemed to be crucial for openings.
The beautiful cruelty about chess is that an amateur like me will very likely lose any game to a grandmaster from the very start simply because the latter can see 10-15 moves ahead on many variations but dudes like me know only half a dozen steps for only a small number of variations.
Freestyle chess, by randomising the starting point of the game, destroys this advantage of memory and pattern recognition; it basically turns every game into a new experience for both players.
Again, bear in mind that most strong players, especially when they play against weaker players, can win simply by recognising the opening mistakes made by their opponents — this is what freestyle cancels out.
Is all this a good thing? Opinions vary.
Carlsen has been rather vocal in promoting freestyle chess, even challenging the International Chess Federation’s (or FIDE) reluctance to host freestyle tournaments.
Given that Gukesh didn’t mind playing Carlsen, I suppose even the world champion is cool with freestyle. Also, perhaps more than a few players enjoy the random set-up making the game seem fresher and even almost entirely new.
Having said that, this innovative approach to the game has its detractors.
Part of enjoying a game of chess is the shared experience or the joy of recognising a well-played opening.
There are fewer things in life more exciting for a chess player than seeing top grandmasters play, say, the Sicilian Defense using a variation you have played a million times yourself. Hence, when this is taken away, the game may come across as a different sport entirely.
I for one don’t enjoy it as much. My brain simply can’t squeeze out the same level of pleasure it gets compared to starting a traditional game the same way it’s been done a billion times.
In the end, perhaps the phenomenon of freestyle chess can be debated as to whether it’s a deviation many people instinctively enjoy (like fusion food, electric cars, a new messenger app, etc.) or something which feels unnecessary and awkward (like a non-QWERTY keyboard, non-Google search engines, unconventional instruments, strange superfoods and so on).
Still, let’s see how this game progresses over time.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
