From confrontation to cooperation, how FIDE and Freestyle Chess ended their truce

After more than a year of confrontation and stand-off, Freestyle Chess and FIDE have finally decided to bury the hatchet and join forces, announcing that they will host the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus, Germany, from February 13–15, 2026.

The differences between the two parties were public, and despite multiple attempts, ending the dispute and finding a middle ground proved difficult for both. In February 2025, The Indian Express reported that FIDE and Freestyle Chess had been very close to an amicable agreement before talks broke down.

Jan Henric Buettner, the German billionaire entrepreneur behind the ambitious Freestyle Grand Slam Tour, revealed to this newspaper how the months-long feud was finally resolved.

“With Arkady (Dvorkovich), I had a very good understanding. We nearly had an agreement a year ago. We were actually finalising the wording of a press release. And then, at the very last moment, it somehow fell apart. I don’t know how. I don’t want to speculate, but it was kind of very weird,” he told The Indian Express.

“And so the whole thing turned from cooperation into confrontation. Then we focused on our own tour and didn’t really bother with it anymore,” he explained. “I think time did its work… We basically reconnected. I took the time to fly to Qatar (during the World Rapid & Blitz Championship) two weeks ago, where we sat down, hammered out our differences, and basically said, ‘Okay, let’s move forward and do what’s beneficial for the players, for FIDE, and also for us and everyone.’ That’s how we agreed, and now we are all friends.”

A joint statement released by Freestyle Chess and FIDE on Wednesday revealed that both parties have signed a cooperation agreement.

Buettner believes that with FIDE now as a partner, players no longer have to worry about choosing a particular side. However, he clarified that the deal is only a short-term one.

“Now, having FIDE as a partner, it’s beneficial for all players. No player has to decide whether to go with FIDE or with Freestyle. It’s all harmonious. This means that together with FIDE, we will determine the qualification process for the 2027 World Championship. Ultimately, this is a short-term deal that benefits everyone,” he said.

Meanwhile, the governing body also clarified that the new FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship will be a continuation of FIDE’s previous events in the Fischer Random format, held in 2019 and 2022.

The February event will feature eight players. Six have qualified based on their results during the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour: Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi, and Javokhir Sindarov. Two additional participants will be selected separately, one by FIDE and one by Freestyle Chess. The Freestyle Chess have already nominated Hans Niemann based on his performance in the Grand Slam Tour in Las Vegas. To determine the eighth player, FIDE will hold an Online Qualification Tournament on Chess.com later this month.

Interestingly, defending FIDE Fischer Random World Champion, Wesley So, didn’t find a spot in the upcoming FIDE Freestyle World Championship.

In essence this will be the fifth world championship in the sport besides the classical World Chess Championship (which is the most prestigious and held every two years), the World Rapid Championship and the World Blitz Championship (which are held together at the end of each year) and the newly-announced Total Chess World Championship, which will go live from 2027 after a pilot event this year.

Fitting into what already seems to be an increasingly confusing schedule of chess world championships, the arrival of Freestyle chess appears to add only more complications. Buettner believes otherwise. “We increasingly see and conduct ourselves as the Formula One of chess. There are many car races around the world and many world championships for all kinds of motorsport, but there’s only one Formula One.”

“It’s up to FIDE how many championships they want to organise. They have Classical, Rapid and Blitz. As for the question of the one Total Chess World Championship, I don’t even want to enter that discussion, because I don’t like others talking down what we do, and I don’t want to talk down what others do. But I saw a very funny video by Vidit (Gujrathi – a satirical sketch explaining the confusion around so many world championships). So there’s a lot of confusion about what counts and how it works. And I believe we have managed to create the least confusion. It’s very simple, very clear: you have to be one of the top players. There are only eight spots, and they are extremely difficult to earn,” he explained.

While India was originally part of the Grand Slam Tour, it was eventually dropped due to a lack of interest from local sponsors, which Buettner identified as a key factor for holding events. This decision sparked some criticism, with fans on social media even referring to the tour as a sinking ship. Buettner strongly refuted these claims. He said, “Whatever you do in life, there are always people who want to target you. If it were a sinking ship, FIDE wouldn’t have engaged with us. We have been dominant.”

“We are clearly the elite players’ professional organisation. We have all the best players. There’s no player we wanted that didn’t join us. We didn’t do anyone harm. We didn’t take advantage of anyone. We spent our own money, about $23 million on this. But I don’t even care about these comments. I don’t care what people say,” Buettner said.

The Grand Slam Tour began in 2025 at Weissenhaus, then moved to Paris and Las Vegas, and concluded in Cape Town. According to Buettner, the upcoming Freestyle World Championship will not mark the start of a new season, but rather the culmination of the previous one. The new season will then commence in April at the Grenke Open in Karlsruhe, Germany.