Five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen and the chess world’s governing body FIDE were embroiled in a public spat until a few days ago. Carlsen, in collaboration with a German businessman, Jan Henric Buettner, has launched a new chess tour, titled the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, and FIDE objected to their use of the term ‘Word Championship’, which it believes undermines FIDE’s exclusive right to that sort of branding. Things got ugly as they exchanged allegations and counter-allegations on social media.

But the conflict, for the time being, has been put on pause, with the Freestyle organisers agreeing not to use the term ‘world championship’ for the first ten months. The Freestyle Tour, which will see a different format of games compared to classical chess, kicked off on February 7 in Weissenhaus, Germany.

What is the Freestyle Grand Slam all about? What is at stake here for Carlsen, FIDE and the other major entities in the chess world? Is there a chance of this new format displacing classical chess in the future?

Guest: P.K. Ajithkumar from The Hindu’s Sports Bureau.

Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu

Edited by Jude Francis Weston

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