How a random chess variant won over the world’s best players
In a barn by the Baltic Sea, Magnus Carlsen makes his move
The majestic Weissenhaus estate has been owned by nobles, survived a devastating fire and hosted world leaders. Its striking castle, white facade illuminated by the glow from the windows, sits on the banks of the Baltic, in northern Germany. A golden frieze stands out against the dark, pitched roof.
In a big barn opposite the castle, a crowd has gathered. On stage is a towering man, the owner of Weissenhaus. Jan Henric Buettner, lit by red lights against a dark curtain, grips the back of a large, transparent table. He tips hundreds of numbered lottery balls down a slide, where they cascade into an orb-like bowl.
At the invitation of the host, I dip into the cluster and pluck out a sphere. Number 328. This ball, in its own small way, will determine the outcome of the inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
Freestyle Chess is a new name for an old idea, a variant in which the pieces on the back row — king, queen, rooks, bishops and knights — start in a randomised position. The pieces on the other side mirror this arrangement. It’s also known as Fischer Random, after Bobby Fischer, the American chess legend, or as Chess960, after the number of possible starting positions. Fischer had grown sick of how theory stifled creativity in the regular game. “I’m not anti-chess, I’m pro-chess,” he explained. “I’m trying to keep it alive.”
Technological advances have compounded Fischer’s complaints. Since Garry Kasparov lost to IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer in 1997, chess engines have consolidated their power. Smartphones can crush grandmasters. Elite players memorise the machine’s lessons and mimic them over the board. It can all feel a little rote. “Imagine if we were playing soccer and it was all about penalty shots,” the Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian says on a cold walk on the coastline. “Let’s say I have amazing speed and dribbling, [but] all I have to do is shoot the ball into the net. That’s what classical chess feels like quite often for us.” (Later Aronian, in response to my “challenge”, beats me in 22 moves, despite advancing his queen earlier than is wise.)
Magnus Carlsen, 34, the world’s top-ranked player, is also sick of penalty kicks. He dropped out of the world championship in 2022 after growing tired of the gruelling, weeks-long format and months of preparation required. Carlsen’s successors — China’s Ding Liren and India’s Gukesh Dommaraju — won the title without the involvement of the world’s best player.
About a year later, Carlsen was approached by a wealthy German businessman. Together, they developed a vision for invigorating the ancient game, loosening the machines’ grip and reintroducing the human element.
Buettner is a Hamburg-born entrepreneur with a background in telecoms. As an executive, he foresaw the internet’s rise in the 1990s, but had to fight for his share of the proceeds when Bertelsmann AG sold its AOL Europe stake for $6.75bn in 2000. He and another Bertelsmann executive settled for $194mn between them. Flush with cash, Buettner bought the rundown Weissenhaus estate and spent nearly two decades developing it into a luxury retreat with a spa and two Michelin stars.
Like millions of people, Buettner fell in love with chess following the Covid-19 pandemic. He improved his game with the hired help of a German grandmaster. Eventually, he envisioned a chess competition with the spectacle of Formula 1 and the personality of its hit docuseries, Drive to Survive. Players would wear brightly coloured jackets, track their heart rates and enter “confession booths” for mid-game interviews. And thanks to the lottery balls, the games would be unpredictable. In July 2024, Buettner raised €10mn from New York-based venture capitalists Left Lane Capital.
At Weissenhaus, Carlsen stays in the GOAT Villa (so named for this event), one of the property’s luxurious accommodations. His star power is crucial to Buettner’s plans for a tour that elevates chess players to celebrities, earns fees from sponsors and hosts, and capitalises on the game’s growing online fan base.
But Freestyle has clashed with Fide, the game’s international governing body, over its plan to crown a world champion, which Fide believes only it has the authority to award. Fide threatened legal action and warned players they would be expected to sign a contract that would bar them from the next two world championships for participating in an unauthorised “world championship”, a chilling prospect for grandmasters not named Magnus Carlsen.
Buettner complained about Fide’s “coercive tactics” and questioned how any organisation could claim a monopoly on the word “world”, but ultimately removed the clashing references. The winner will be crowned Freestyle Chess Champion. The move will be revisited in a postseason review.
This isn’t Carlsen’s first spat with Fide. Late last year, he was fined $200 for wearing jeans at the World Rapid Championship. He withdrew, but returned when Fide relaxed the dress code. Fide remains hopeful that the parties can reconcile. “It requires building more trust, it requires building a more respectful environment, but it is possible,” Arkady Dvorkovich, its president, said in an interview.
I ask Sverre Sundbø, a Norwegian television presenter, if he thinks his fellow countryman Carlsen will ever play Fide events again. Just then, the king of chess enters the room. “Magnus, what should I answer?” Sundbø asks, laughing. Carlsen’s response is withering. “Probably not,” he says and slips away.
There’s a shock in the barn. Vincent Keymer, 20, defeats Carlsen in the semi-finals. The GOAT can finish only as high as third. The young German awaits either Fabiano Caruana of the US or Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan in the final, and their match rages on for almost eight hours as they play a baffling array of arrangements — including ball 328. Slow games fail to divide them. Rapid and blitz games follow. Finally, Caruana, currently the world number two, prevails. By nightfall, players and staff are shattered. Snow falls ahead of a two-day final that culminates on Valentine’s Day.
Freestyle’s success will rely on chess’s modern internet and media ecosystem. Platforms such as Chess.com, a partner to Freestyle, have boomed since The Queen’s Gambit, the hit Netflix series, was released during the pandemic. Word is that a production company has been filming here behind the scenes, in search of the next mainstream moment.
There’s a shock in the barn. Vincent Keymer, 20, defeats Magnus Carlsen in the semi-finals. The GOAT can finish only as high as third
The content creators Anna Cramling and the pseudonymous JulesGambit have just filmed for YouTube. I ask them what stands out at Weissenhaus. Game night, they say, where chess is swapped for the role-playing contest Avalon. “You’ve got bad guys and good guys, and we’ll all start accusing each other,” Jules says.
This game night, Caruana sits in front of a fireplace at his Weissenhaus residence, joined by Cramling, Jules and a dozen others, including the popular chess-streaming sisters Alexandra and Andrea Botez. Streamers and grandmasters become servants of King Arthur or minions of the villainous Mordred. Game night is in the centre of a Venn diagram of chess, gaming and internet culture, a small taste of the evolutionary leaps that are transforming tradition.
But with investors on site, Freestyle’s media strategy runs into trouble. Daniel Naroditsky, another influential commentator and grandmaster, has walked out and aired a series of grievances with Freestyle on Twitch. Naroditsky criticised Buettner for booking too many commentators and for “denigrating” chess notation. He also complained that Weissenhaus was too isolated for him to track down a decent doner kebab. But his concerns ran deeper: can Freestyle engage casual fans, or is it a niche event for the elite?
Buettner gives Naroditsky an earful over the phone. Following an intervention by Aronian, Buettner finds a way to bring Naroditsky back into the fold, albeit online rather than on site. Buettner regrets his initial reaction, but his concern is understandable; chess is an online phenomenon and talk travels fast.
Online chess will debut at the Saudi Arabia-backed Esports World Cup in Riyadh later this year. The event will offer a $1.5mn prize pool, double Weissenhaus’s. Chess will be played alongside popular video games such as League of Legends and Call of Duty. Carlsen and Caruana have signed for Team Liquid, one of the biggest brands in esports.
While Caruana welcomes these developments, he worries about “growing the game out of our control”. “I’m a bit of a purist in terms of chess,” he says, “so I don’t want to see it completely lose its identity. Chess has a very long legacy and it completely precedes the internet age.”
As the final approaches, the chess-media machine kicks into action. From a string of studios alongside the barn, content creators, commentators and chess legends talk viewers through the action.
On the pro stream, Judit Polgár, the only woman ever to reach the top 10, and grandmaster Peter Leko, who doubles as Keymer’s coach, are joined by Aronian to deliver deep analysis to sophisticated viewers. On the community stream, James “Dash” Patterson plays the role of outsider; he is better known for commentating on League of Legends and other esports. Levy Rozman, aka GothamChess, explains the game in the plain terms that have earned him millions of subscribers and the moniker of the Internet’s Chess Teacher.
Freestyle’s major backers have flown in. Left Lane Capital chief Harley Miller wears all black, from his trenchcoat to his spiky sneakers.
Keymer’s golden jacket is draped on his chair. It’s a fitting colour, as he has the measure of the lottery positions once again. Keymer and Caruana draw the final game, ending the American’s chances of a comeback. With a slightly raised brow, Caruana extends his hand. Keymer takes a final glance at the pieces, and shakes to secure the $200,000 prize, the biggest of his young career. A glitzy ceremony follows and the party continues after dinner. Keymer plays poker in the cellar with a few of the guests. Staff and other revellers dance into the night.
The next morning, Buettner wakes characteristically early. In his office, he’s surrounded by mementos of the F1 hospitality he wants to emulate. The man who fought for his share of the AOL Europe proceeds and invested the cash into a village near his birthplace is now the CEO of a chess start-up. He plans to step back into the role of chair later this year. An investor tells me the next move is to turn Freestyle into a business. Lower cost, more revenue. Although Freestyle Chess is now funded by venture capitalists, Buettner can’t hide the emotion in his voice when he thinks of the players. “I would never leave them,” he says. “I would always fight for them.”
Carlsen plays a game of golf before flying off. The world’s greatest chess player is headed to Texas for an interview with Joe Rogan, the podcast host. The episode will eventually have more than four million views on YouTube. Then, last month, Carlsen put the jeans that offended Fide up for auction on eBay for the benefit of a youth charity. The winning bidder snagged them for $36,100.