When asked about the start of his newest project, the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, Hamburg entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner only has one word: Mega!

Buettner has been making a name for himself as a sponsor and investor in the chess scene for a good year now. He has invited the best chess players in the world to his luxury hotel complex on the Baltic Sea for a week. Surrounded by chess influencers from all over the world, 10 professional chess players have been competing against each other. The next few months will see similarly glamorous events in places like Paris and New York.

Chess for the masses?

"We are producing a chess product for non-chess players," Buettner says.

Armed with €20 million ($21 million) in venture capital, Buettner is aiming to give chess a makeover for the masses. The figurehead of the event is former world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, but current champion Dommaraju Gukesh of India will also be there, as well as Germany's No. 1 player, Vincent Keymer. The German even managed the feat of knocking superstar Carlsen out of the tournament. Not in traditional chess, but in "freestyle," a variant in which the opening is drawn by lot before each game.

However, the aspects of the game are not the real focus of the event.

"We want to reach a whole new target group. People aren't interested in all the rules," Buettner says.

But the rules have been the subject of much controversy in recent weeks. This is because the world chess federation (FIDE) considers itself responsible for the rules of chess.

"We are concerned with the integrity of the chess world," FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich told DW. "We made clear that we want to keep the world championship title as something that is governed by the international chess federation."

 

Negotiations via WhatsApp

The bone of contention: Buettner's intention to crown a freestyle world champion at the end of his tournament series. Since the start of the year, the German millionaire had been negotiating with Dvorkovich, a former deputy prime minister of Russia and FIDE's president since 2018. Contract and press texts were exchanged, as were WhatsApp messages. In the end, no agreement was reached.

"There was simply a lack of trust," sad Dvorkovich.

"A waste of time! I didn't even speak to the president, I spoke to the janitor," was the response from the tournament side.

For players like Vincent Keymer, the dispute between "Freestyle" and FIDE poses a dilemma. For the top players, the new format is interesting and a good source of income. But Keymer and the others also want to continue playing for the world title in classical chess.

"Of course, that would have been a big issue for me if I had to choose between the FIDE tournaments and the freestyle competitions," Keymer told DW at the beginning of the year.

Arkady Dvorkovich has confirmed that this issue is off the table for 2025.

"I hope this topic doesn't come up again in the course of the year 2025 or 2026 and we can resolve it through dialog," he said.

Buettner hasn't ruled out further talks but warned: "They won't get such a good deal again."

It is quite possible that the issue could soon be a matter for the courts to decide.

Random openings the future of chess?

One thing is certain; the dispute over the World Cup rights has really brought the previously little-played chess variant "Fischer Random" or freestyle into the spotlight. The late former world champion Bobby Fischer of the United States is regarded as the inventor of freestyle chess. As the opening positioning of the pieces are drawn at the start, the preparations for the opening that are so important in regular chess are meaningless. The drawn positions take some getting used to, even for professionals:

"Even I find it difficult to understand," says Josefine Heinemann.

The German national team player doesn't believe that this form of chess will attract an audience of millions.

"If I hardly understand anything, then most spectators will understand even less," she said.

She also noted that women had been left out entirely and only a few of the top men's players were involved.

This doesn't seem to bother Buettner, who believes that as in Formula 1 motor racing, the audience is more interested in the show than anything else.

"We don't do anything for the chess. We concentrate on what the mass market wants," he said.

Buettner's main vehicle for presenting his series is the Internet, and he said the number of viewers of his streamed content has more than doubled compared to last year's premiere event. However, he is not yet revealing any details:

"We are at the very beginning and want to see how it develops. We don't want to release any figures at the moment."

The aim, however, is for the undertaking to eventually be worth "billions."

Missed opportunity?

"It seems challenging to me to make chess more popular overall with freestyle of all things," the head of the Berlin Chess Association and eSports expert Paul Meyer-Dunker told DW. 

Like Heinemann, he too thinks that the random openings represent an added hurdle for non-chess players.

Nevertheless, Meyer-Dunker believes that the World Chess Federation has missed a great opportunity.

"FIDE does have a point, in the sense that a World Championship should not be decoupled like a private tournament," Meyer-Dunker conceded.

"Unfortunately, the chess world and its officials are too often fixated on how things were and how they should remain," he added, noting that some change might do the world of of chess good. 

"Freestyle could be such a change that comes from outside."

This article was originally published in German.