After a long and public squabble, FIDE and the organisers of Freestyle Chess have buried the hatchet and agreed to jointly host a World Championship in the freestyle format this year. Called the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, the event will be hosted in Weissenhaus from February 13–15. 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.
FIDE, the global governing body of chess, announced that the new World Championship will be “governed by FIDE in collaboration with Freestyle Chess”.
FIDE said that six players have already qualified for the eight-player event, based on their results during the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour: Magnus Carlsen, Arjun Erigaisi, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer, and Javokhir Sindarov. Two additional participants will be selected separately, one by FIDE and one by Freestyle Chess. Freestyle Chess has already nominated Hans Niemann, due to his outstanding performance in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Las Vegas. FIDE will hold an Online Qualification Tournament on Chess.com as early as January 14 and 15 to determine the eighth player.
The FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship will be a continuation of FIDE’s previous events in the Fischer Random format (previously held in 2019 and 2022) and will feature eight players.
A Women’s Exhibition Match between two of the best women will be held in parallel in Weissenhaus. Additionally, the Parties have agreed to the launch of the inaugural FIDE Women’s Freestyle Chess Championship in late 2026. The event will feature a $50,000 prize fund, financed from the payment made by Freestyle Chess under the current agreement with FIDE.
“This World Championship and signed cooperation agreement bring FIDE and Freestyle Chess together within a clear and transparent sporting framework,” said Arkady Dvorkovich, President of FIDE. “It is important that elite competition in this format is governed under established international standards administered by FIDE as the sole governing body of world chess.”
“Our aim from the outset was to build a serious competitive structure, not isolated events,” said Jan Henric Buettner, CEO of Freestyle Chess. “After completing our first Grand Slam season, a World Championship in cooperation with FIDE is the logical next step – a defined title, a fixed venue, and a clear competitive peak.”
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The man behind Freestyle Chess, Jan Henric Buettner, speaks in a press conference. (Lennart Ootes/Freestyle Chess)
Format and schedule for FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship
Friday, February 13: The tournament opens with a rapid round-robin stage, following the format used in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam events. All eight players face each other once with a time control of 10 minutes plus 5-second increment. The top four players advance to the semifinals, while the remaining players move into placement matches.
Saturday, February 14: The knockout stage begins with the semifinals and placement matches, played with a time control of 25 minutes plus 10-second increment. The semifinals will be played as four-game matches.
Sunday, February 15: The final, played over four games, and the placement matches use the same 25 minutes plus 10-second increment. In the final, the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion is determined.
Prize money for FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship
All final places from first to eighth will be decided over the board. The total prize fund is $300,000, with $100,000 awarded to the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion.