From Fallout to World Championship: Inside the Landmark Partnership Between FIDE and Freestyle Chess

FIDE and Freestyle Chess come together!

The chess world was recently rocked by the announcement of a formal partnership between FIDE and Freestyle Chess. In an extensive interview with ChessBase India, the man behind the Freestyle revolution, Jan-Henric Buettner, shared the behind-the-scenes story of how this deal was struck, the motivations of the world’s top players, and why he is ready to step back from the "baby" he created.

From Public Fallout to "Friends and Family"

Sagar Shah (SS): Huge news was dropped on the chess world yesterday: the announcement of the FIDE Freestyle Chess 2026 World Championship. Everyone is curious and surprised—how did this partnership come about?

Jan Henric Buettner (JHB): The process actually started exactly one year ago when we were in negotiations with FIDE that were very, very near to a deal. Arkady [Dvorkovich] and I had a very good relationship and had negotiated everything—including a press release—down to the very last words, but then it all fell apart for reasons I still don't quite know. It was a big surprise at the time that it was completely dropped, leading to a "cooling off period" where we focused on our own tour and stopped caring about whether we were a "world championship" or not.

However, because I am a harmonious person by nature and didn't want to spend the next season positioned against FIDE, I re-established contact a few months ago. I invited Arkady to South Africa so he could see what we were doing on-site and find some common ground. Even Henrik Carlsen, who had experienced a difficult relationship with FIDE previously, was supportive and healthy, saying, "Let's sit all together... see what we can do together".

Although Arkady couldn't make it to South Africa due to a health issue, he suggested we meet in Qatar instead. We visited Qatar for just a day, where the proposal was made to end our first season in Weissenhaus 2026 as a FIDE World Championship. I realized this solved a lot of issues and made much more sense for everybody, especially the players. My heart is really with them - I want them to be superstars - and this agreement dissolves the friction that would have forced them to choose sides. Now, the relationship between Freestyle and FIDE is like "F&F": Friends and Family; everybody is friendly again.

The exclusion of Hikaru Nakamura

SS: We have these top six players who have qualified—Levon Aronian, Javokhir Sindarov, Arjun Erigaisi, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, and Vincent Keymer—but at number seven in the standings is Hikaru Nakamura and number eight is Hans Niemann. What was the thought process regarding the wildcards, especially since Hikaru was higher in the standings than Hans?

JHB: We agreed that the 2025 tour would serve as the qualification path for the 2026 World Championship because those top six players were clearly outstanding in their commitment. Because we wanted to maintain the eight-player format we used in South Africa, we decided to share the wildcards: one for FIDE and one for Freestyle. For our wildcard, it was clear that we wanted Hans Niemann because he was such a great performer in Las Vegas, even though he finished eighth in the standings. FIDE, however, decided they wanted a "real strong qualification" for their spot so that a titled player could validly earn that eighth position through an online tournament on Chess.com.

Regarding Hikaru, I personally had a very friendly, non-controversial discussion with him. He received an invitation, he thought about it, and he declined. While he does have a life-changing event with a new baby at home, I do not believe that was his main reasoning. When he heard this was to be an official World Championship, my interpretation of his thinking is that his market value is heavily driven by the Fischer Random 960 world title he previously achieved. He doesn't really want to enter a field of eight and have to prove himself all over again with a high likelihood that he might not win.

I would compare his situation to Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1; Hamilton was a seven-time world champion, but now he is driving behind everyone and people aren't talking about him in the same way. Hikaru is more at the end of his career and feels he doesn't have to prove himself again against Magnus and all of these young people. He would rather have the end of his Fischer Random career be remembered with him as the World Champion. I have total respect and understanding for that reasoning, which is why we moved forward with Hans as our replacement wildcard.

Magnus Carlsen and the New 25-Minute Format

Sagar Shah: Because this entire freestyle initiative began with Magnus Carlsen, what is his take on this becoming an official World Championship, and how involved has he been in the process?

Magnus is generally very much in his own head, but we know he likes collecting world championship titles and he is good at it, so the chance to earn yet another title is a big motivation for him. He really valued the Freestyle Open that we had in Grenke because he achieved a 9.0/9 score and surpassed 2900 Elo performance.

He is very much involved in the format of this new championship. We learned from the Las Vegas event that the days were clearly too long, with players like Fabiano playing for 10 to 11 hours, and Magnus wanted to ensure the matches were fair but efficient. Specifically, Magnus wanted to have four games per match rather than two, so that he could play two times with white and two times with black.

To accommodate those four games while ensuring we finish in a good time, we ended up with a 25-minute time control for each player. To keep the schedule tight and linear for the viewers, we are also skipping the rapid and blitz portions of the tiebreaks and moving directly to Armageddon if the score is tied.

We have also fixed the timing issues we faced in South Africa, where we played on weekdays; the World Championship will only be three days—Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We are starting at 3:00 p.m. local time specifically so that our audience in India and the USA has a chance to watch it live.

Women's exhibition match

SS: There is also news of a women’s exhibition match that will be held in parallel, and a future qualification cycle for the 2027 season. How will those paths be decided, and what is the vision for the women's game in Freestyle?

JHB: Regarding the women, it was Arkady’s wish ideally to have a women's qualifying tournament as well, but we realized this was too short notice. We decided it would be difficult to say, "We are doing this World Championship now; tomorrow you qualify." Instead, the plan is to have a proper World Championship for women in 2027 for the first time, with a real qualification cycle for that event. The women's part of the initiative is completely in the hands of FIDE. For this year, we are holding an exhibition match instead. We have already named two players; one has agreed, and we are still waiting to hear back from the second, as she was difficult to reach before the press release. We will reveal who they are once we have both agreements.

The Future

JHB: For the 2027 qualification cycle, we have an actual agreement with FIDE—not just a press release—stating that we will jointly find the best path. We have already played around with some ideas. One possibility is that the top three of the previous World Championship would be qualified, leaving five open spots. Those remaining spots would be earned through transparent, public qualification tournaments.

We are looking at several avenues for 2027:

• A spot for the winner of the GRENKE Freestyle tournament.

• A spot for the winner of the Rapid & Blitz Championship.

• A spot for the year-end winner of "Freestyle Fridays," which we intend to blow up significantly.

• We may even license one or two other tournaments the right to name a participant for the World Championship.

Finally, while we plan to hold the marquee event in Weissenhaus every February, it doesn't have to be there. I would say to your audience that if India, for example, hosts the 2027 World Championship in Freestyle Chess, we would be happy to do it there. Weissenhaus remains our backup option if we don't find another host, but the road to the World Championship will be a collaborative, professional effort between Freestyle and FIDE.

On a personal note for Jan Henric

SS: Finally, are you happy with how this journey has evolved? This entire freestyle cycle and the world championship match seem like they are here to stay.

JHB: No, I couldn't be more happy. As I said, my personal goal was never to have a new business for the next ten years that I establish against the tides and everybody. I am very happy that I was able to show what was in my mind two years ago when Holly and I had this idea and when we brought it to market. We were able to implement it and we got the funds, the support, and the investors to really put it on stage, because nobody really could understand what I was talking about in the first place.

I'm happy that this tour was going so well, and I’m even more happy now that we have a conclusion of this tour being the World Championship and having a path forward which looks as being here to stay. We just have a short-term agreement now, but we are negotiating a long-term agreement in the next weeks so that we have a longer-term outlook for the players.

Personally, I have not planned to make this, I’m 61 now, my journey into the 70s, to do this business. I'm looking basically for a new home for this "baby" now that it is in a great state, especially being embedded in the chess world. It is no longer an "alien" and I don't have to be a renegade fighting against everybody, which is not my role.

My hope would be that I can present some kind of new leadership, a new ownership, and a new structure by April 2025. That is the idea—that I finish off this Season One, and then somebody else should be responsible for Season Two. That's the perfect time for me to be able to step back and say, "Okay guys, I think I did my part, and now somebody else should take the torch." I am very, very happy about how the time evolved; this was like a very exciting two and a half years of my life.