Chess tour Carlsen and Buettner start the chess Grand Slam tour
Magnus Carlsen (Norway) in action. photo
© Marcus Brandt/dpa
Magnus Carlsen and entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner want to create a Grand Slam format for chess. Carlsen is always seeded in competitions. However, classical chess is not played.
The world’s best chess player Magnus Carlsen and German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner have launched a Grand Slam tour for chess. “We’re doing everything together as usual,” Buettner told the German Press Agency. Just a few weeks ago, both of them tested a new game format together in Schleswig-Holstein with the so-called Freestyle Chess GOAT Challenge.
In order to take part in the new tour format, players must join the newly founded Freestyle Chess Players Club. All 25 invited world-class players accepted the invitation, the Norwegian Carlsen (33) is always seeded for the tournaments, said Buettner and explained: “People always want to see Magnus play.”
At the top-class tournament, which was held for the first time in February at Buettner’s Gut Weissenhaus, Carlsen defeated Fabiano Caruana, number two in the world, in the final. The Chess960 variant is played in Freestyle Chess. The figures on the baseline are set up almost arbitrarily and at random based on just a few rules. This results in a total of 960 possible starting positions, so there is no classically rehearsed opening to the game. This makes games more creative and unpredictable.
After the tournament in Ostholstein, the event will start in India in 2024. There should be four events in 2025. “After India, we will stop in Weissenhaus, New York, South America and South Africa. Australia is in our sights for 2026 because we want to cover all continents,” said Buettner. “Then we have to see how things work out. The goal is to have a tournament every two months.” In the long term, the prize money per tournament should be one million euros.
In the distant future, the series should also be able to take place without Carlsen. “If the tournament has established itself at the top level as I imagine it will and in a few years it will work as a crowd puller even without Magnus, then we can switch to “just” a Grand Slam tour,” said Buettner. “But as long as he wants to play and the market is such that nothing works without Magnus, we will guarantee that he will play.”
Homepage of the tournament results Magnus Carlsen on Instagram
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2024-03-15 13:46:58
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