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One year ago, the world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, and the global chess body, Fide, were at loggerheads after the Norwegian was penalised for wearing jeans at the World Rapid in New York. The 35-year-old also agreed to share the World Blitz crown despite a rule requiring an outright winner.
Relations worsened further when Fide opposed Carlsen’s wish for the new Freestyle circuit winner to be called a world champion, he announced that he was “done” with Fide.
Next week in Doha, UAE, jeans will be allowed, the title rules have been clarified, and Carlsen will again be the clear favourite to win the Rapid, although the Blitz is more open.
When Carlsen clinched the Freestyle Tour crown with two days to spare, the most significant congratulations came from the Fide president, Arkady Dvorkovich. He said: “The new brand [Freestyle chess] has the potential to be a success story, and we are open to collaborating in a mutually beneficial way … Fide recognises [Magnus Carlsen] as the No 1 in the world in this exciting version of chess.”
Dvorkovich significantly made no mention of Fide’s own Freestyle/Chess 960/Fischer Random world title contests in 2019 and 2022, which were won by Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura of the US, both ahead of Carlsen.
The field for Doha is strong, with more than 200 players entered for both Rapid and Blitz. They include the official world champions Gukesh Dommaraju and, for the women’s titles, Ju Wenjun, the US quartet of Fabiano Caruana, So, Levon Aronian and Hans Niemann, as well as rising talents like Argentina’s Faustino Oro and Turkey’s Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, and legends like Vasyl Ivanchuk. There are no English or British entrants.
Surprisingly, France’s Alireza Firouzja, one of the world’s best speed players and a star of the recent London Classic Super Rapid, will be absent. This week at the Tech Mahindra Global League in Mumbai, India, Firouzja displayed his speed skills by scoring 4/4 against Caruana, Gukesh, Nakamura, and the former world champion Vishy Anand. Firouzja made it 5/5 on Thursday when he defeated his French compatriot Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Oro, 12, has just scored his second GM norm (of three needed for the GM title) at an all-play-all invitation in Buenos Aires. The norm was 5.5 out of 9. Oro won his first two games against the tailenders, then drew the remaining seven, some without much fight. He still has three months to break Abhimanyu Mishra’s world record as the youngest GM ever, but needs to do it in a Swiss system event, which may prove practically difficult. This was Oro’s round one victory.
Back in England, the World Rapid/Blitz will coincide with the 99th year of Hastings, the chess world’s longest-running congress where numerous world champions have competed. On a snowy New Year’s Eve there in 1961, I missed a chance to draw with the great Mikhail Botvinnik by 33 bxa7!.
Hastings has a problem this year. There has been no backing for the past two years from Hastings Borough Council, which for decades was the event’s principal sponsor. Caplin Systems, which supported the congress for its last four editions, is no longer involved, so the main sponsor this year will be the John Robinson Youth Chess Trust.
The Hastings Masters has so far only one 2500+ grandmaster entrant, France’s Pierre-Laurent Paoli. However, its director, GM Stuart Conquest, says that overall congress numbers are holding up well, and the situation does create the opportunity for an ambitious talent to add his or her name to the historic list of Hastings winners. There is still time to enter Hastings here.
Jonathan Hawkins, British champion in 2014 and 2015, has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, and has had to abandon his career as an England junior coach, which included a historic seven gold medals at Rhodes in 2022. A gofundme campaign has been launched for Jonathan and his partner and carer, Angela Eyton. It’s a worthy cause.
4002: 1 Bf1! Bxf1 2 Bd4! (2 Bh6! is also good) Rg8 (if Rxe1 3 Qxg7 mate) 3 Qxg7+! Rxg7 4 Re8+ and mates.
