“Magnus Carlsen, the world’s high chess participant, is bored of chess,” the Washington Put up wrote Friday:
Carlsen has spent a lot of the previous 12 months showing to dismiss the sport he has mastered: It was not thrilling to play, he advised a podcast in March. In December, he withdrew from defending a world championship as a result of he was penalized for sporting denims to the event.
How would the world’s finest participant boost the sport? Change the principles, and add a contact of actuality TV.
Ten of the world’s high gamers gathered in a German villa on the Baltic coast this week to play within the first event of a brand new chess circuit, the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, that Carlsen co-founded. The twist: The tour randomizes the beginning positions of the chess board’s most necessary items, so every sport begins with the queen, rooks and knights in a jumble. [It’s sometimes called “Chess960” or Fischer random chess — with both players starting with the same arrangement of pieces.] Gamers must adapt on the fly. Carlsen is backed by a cadre of traders who see an opportunity to dramatize chess with the theatrics of a tv present. Gamers put on heart-rate screens and provides confession-booth interviews mid-match the place they strategize and fret to the viewers. Some purists are skeptical. So is the Worldwide Chess Federation, which despatched a barrage of authorized threats to Freestyle Chess earlier than it launched this week’s occasion.
At stake is a profitable world market of tons of of thousands and thousands of chess gamers that has solely continued to develop because the coronavirus pandemic launched a startling chess renaissance — and, maybe, the authority to determine if and the way a centuries-old sport ought to evolve… The format is an antidote to the classical sport, the place patterns and methods have been so rigorously studied that it is onerous to innovate, Carlsen mentioned. “It is nonetheless potential to get a [competitive] sport, however it’s a must to form of dig deeper and deeper,” Carlsen mentioned. “I simply discover that there is too little scope for creativity.”
The article additionally consists of this quote from American grand grasp Hikaru Nakamura who runs a chess YouTube channel with 2.7 million subscribers). “An integral a part of common chess is that while you play, you spend hours making ready your opening technique earlier than the sport. However with Fischer Random … it is a little bit bit looser and extra gratifying.” And German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner (one of many traders) says they hope to carry the drama of Method One racecars. (“Cameras mounted at desk degree peer up at every participant throughout video games,” the article notes at one level.)
The primary Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour (with a $750,000 prize pool) concluded Friday, based on the article, however “Carlsen didn’t play in it,” the Put up factors out. “He was upset within the semifinals by German grand grasp Vincent Keymer.” Carlsen’s response? “I undoubtedly discover Freestyle more durable.”
However Chess.com reviews that Carlsen shall be again to taking part in common chess very quickly:
International esports powerhouse Group Liquid has introduced the signings of not only one, however two superstars of chess. 5-time World Champion and world number-one Magnus Carlsen and the 2018 challenger, world number-two Fabiano Caruana will symbolize the membership forward of the 2025 Esports World Cup (EWC)… Carlsen and Caruana, recent from competing within the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, will first symbolize Group Liquid within the $150,000 Chessable Masters, which begins on February 16 and serves as the primary of two qualifying occasions within the 2025 Champions Chess Tour. The highest-12 gamers from the tour qualify for the EWC.
In an announcement video Carlsen reportedly trolls the FIDE, based on Indian Specific. “The announcement video sees Carlsen put on a Group Liquid jersey together with a jacket and denims. He then asks: ‘Do I’ve to vary?’ To this, somebody responds: ‘Don’t fret, we’re fairly chill in esports. Welcome to Group Liquid.'”
