Unlikely to play any Fide events: Carlsen

Bengaluru: With negotiations failing and the feud with Fide remaining unresolved, world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen has ruled out any further collaboration with the world chess governing body. That includes participating in Fide events in the future.

The year-end Fide World Rapid and Blitz Championship has been among Carlsen’s most important calendar events since he walked away from the classical World Championship in 2022. As things stand, Carlsen is unlikely to participate.

“What I can say now is that the relationship that my team and I have with Fide is pretty destroyed. At least with the current administration,” Carlsen told Norwegian TV2. Asked pointedly about the World Rapid and Blitz, he responded: “As it is now, it is completely irrelevant.”

The December 25-31 tournament is scheduled to be held in Doha. Last year’s tournament saw plenty of drama with Carlsen pulling out of it midway through and then being coaxed to return by Fide before he eventually had his way and the title was shared (between him and Ian Nepomniachtchi) for the first time.

Carlsen is now focused largely on the Fischer Random format and the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour had its first event of the year beginning in Weissenhaus, Germany, on Friday with some of the world’s top players. “I hope this will start something, and hopefully a new era,” said Carlsen.

The first day’s round-robin rapid play (Fischer Random) saw reigning classical world champion Gukesh going down to Alireza Firouzja after stumbling into a mate-in-2 while Fabiano Caruana defeated Carlsen.

The feud between Fide and the organisers of Freestyle Chess has been brewing for months with recent negotiations breaking down. Fide has been unequivocal about not wanting to part with its sole authority over the ‘World Championship’ title, one that Freestyle Chess organisers have been pushing to award its Tour winner at the end of the year.