The chess world is being wracked by a power struggle between the governing body Fide and world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen.
While Fide is backing classic and rapid chess, Carlsen – who recently expressed his views on the classical chess format, claiming that the faster form of the game is “pure sport” – is pushing for his Freestyle Chess Tour.
As players are undecided on which way to go, Indian grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi has come out to say that freestyle is the future of chess.
“Chess is exciting right now with lots of different kinds of tournaments. Events like the World Championship have always been Fide’s main event, then there’s the Grand Swiss and World Cup,” the Indian world No. 4 told the Hindustan Times. “The Freestyle Tour (Fischer Random format) seems very exciting with tournaments across continents and players like Magnus, Hikaru (Nakamura) and Fabiano (Caruana) participating.
“I’ll be part of some Tour events, for sure. I’ll be playing the Paris edition. Even if (Fischer Random) is not the immediate future, it’s surely the future of chess for the next generation.”
In Fischer Random, also known as Chess960, the starting positions of pieces on the back rank are randomised, minimising the role of opening theory. It is a chess variation that randomises the starting position of the pieces. The goal is to encourage creativity and skill instead of memorising opening moves.
Freestyle Chess Tour organisers and Fide have been feuding over the World Championship title. Freestyle chess has aspirations of awarding a “world champion” title to its Tour winner which Fide refused to relent to, calling the Championship its preserve.
Arjun, who is India’s top-ranked player, will be a part of the e-sports World Cup in Riyadh in July. It will be the first time that chess will be part of the event.
“The way I look at it is, Freestyle chess is unique; it can fit in both as an e-sport as well as an over-the-board sport,” said Arjun. “This is the first time it’s being played as an e-sport so it definitely opens up new doors. I’m quite excited.”
