There’s a new sort of chess. It’s flashy, it’s exciting. It’s called Freestyle Chess, or Chess960, or Fischer Random Chess, depending on who you ask. It was invented in 1996, by chess genius Bobby Fischer in order to prevent players from simply preparing specific ideas and moves for the first twenty or so moves of the game and focus more on the ideas of playing good, clean, interesting chess. Basically, you randomize the pieces on the back rank, and now it’s really hard to memorize things. Without opening theory, the onus would be on players to improve at tactical awareness, positional patterns, and the like.
It is expected, of course, that when you introduce a new facet to the world of a game, that the results will be a different sort of play. Perhaps a new player will peak their head into the upper echelons of chess. There was a hope that someone else might be dominant in Freestyle, shaking things up. Maybe there’d be someone new?
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
The Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, a name no less silly now than it was during its introduction, has come down now to its top two finalists, the players that, after round robin play and elimination rounds, will compete for the finals and the grand prize.
The players are, of course, World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, and World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura.
Who’da thunk it, huh?
It’s another dominating performance from Hikaru, who has been performing incredibly well following a disappointing performance at the Weissenhaus leg of the Grand Slam Tour that had him consider retirement seriously. He followed that performance up with a domination of the Chessable Masters tournament, where he finished second, and then a dominant performance in the American Cup where he beat Levon Aronian, up-and-coming junior Abhimanyu Mishra, and Fabiano Caruana (World No. 5) twice to take home the trophy. He’s playing like a man possessed by some terrifying amalgamation of stockfish and something else, and he’s playing games that are putting him in the upper echelon of chess.
And he just can’t beat one man.
That second place performance at the Chessable Masters was on losing no less than two matches to Magnus Carlsen, both the Winner’s Bracket final and the Grand final. That’s the man Hikaru has to beat to take home this leg of the Grand Slam Tour.
And yet, Magnus feels beatable in this format. He’s dominant, sure, but at Weissenhaus, Magnus lost a close match to German junior Vincent Keymer, losing the match 1.5-0.5. Magnus Carlsen is beatable.
It’s just that Hikaru can’t beat him. The two have a rivalry that spans since both were promising young juniors playing in the shadow of such chess legends like Kasparov and Anand. That storied rivalry? 14-1-28. In classical games, where players have time to think and calculation is king, Hikaru has won one game, a fateful game played in a six-player double-round robin in Bilbao. That was the only game he won in that tournament, finishing every other game with draws and finishing second, with a gap between him and Carlsen in points equal to the gap between him and Anish Giri, who occupied last place.
In short, Hikaru Nakamura has a Magnus Carlsen problem, and nothing that has happened recently seems to indicate to anyone that the problem is going anywhere. Losing in the Chessable Masters (a tournament once called the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour) to Magnus twice (twice!) across two matches is just another in a long list of brutal losses by someone who is, by many accounts, the second or third best chess player of our generation.
It’s unfortunate as well that he, Magnus, and Fabiano Caruana have crushed so much of the top chess talent in their reign on the top. Fabiano was Magnus’ semifinal opponent, and another member of the 30-year-old club that loiters in the top-10. He’s joined by Carlsen, Hikaru, and two-time Candidates Winner (and two-time World Championship runner-up) Ian Nepomniachtchi, four players who have been absolutely dominant in almost every tournament they play. There’s an entire generational gap between them and the rest of the field, with only one person in the top 10 even touching 25. The World Champion is 18, the guy who took down the Tata Steel tournament is 19, and India’s second-ever 2800 rated player is only 21.
There’s a new generation of juniors that is chomping at the bit to take over, and time and time again, a group of the best chess has to offer has refused.
Time is the ultimate enemy, in any sport, field, or art. It is difficult to play good chess as you age, as your life takes centerstage more and more, and as your brain slows down. Most players peak in their late 20s — as their brains develop, their understanding, intuition and ability to understand the game matures. There are players who are somehow still pushing their love for the game to such lengths as to remain competitive long after expected — World No. 11 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov is pushing 40, and World No. 15 Vishwanath Anand is remaining an inspiration to Indian chess players the world-over at 55. But these are exceptional cases. Mamedyarov hasn’t placed in the top two in a tournament since 2022, barring a four-way tie for second in the London Classic Elite against a slate of players that included the World No. 25 and then a bunch of players rated a hundred or more points below him. Anand plays one or two games a year and has not won a major classical game in a long time.
Age comes for us all.
And age is coming for the current crop of chess legends. The question is how long it will take and how many promising players are waiting in the wings to claim their thrones as the aged continue to age out. Carlsen has nothing left to prove, and while the other three are all some of the greatest players to ever live, I feel like they have something left to prove: There’s still a World Championship in question. Hikaru is playing again with a fire in his eyes, but with Magnus taking a step back, the question becomes whether one of Hikaru, Nepo, or Fabi can win a World Championship in the next couple cycles. One of the three has been in the top two for the candidates in every cycle since 2016, with all three tying for second in the 2024 cycle that saw Gukesh D beat Ding Liren to become world champion — Ding himself becoming champion only after Carlsen refused to defend the title in a rematch against Nepo the cycle before.
There’s an upper class of the chess world, players who seem to dominate tournament after tournament, due to a combination of preparation, experience, and just beautiful chess. Those players have been the dominant ones the entire time I’ve been following the game, and it’s a moderately frightening idea that we could be seeing the sunset of this era.
And yet, Hikaru, Fabi, Magnus, and Nepo keep playing masterfully in top-level tournaments. They keep making the board feel like a great battle that is won, sometimes in moments and sometimes in long, slow, calculated movements. There is still something strong left amongst the four, and the finals between Hikaru and Magnus are sure to rise to expectations.
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