After the dispute with the FIDE Weltschachverband has been settled for the time being, the freestyle chess tournament in Weissenhaus on the Baltic Sea finally writes sporty headlines. The Mainz Vincent Keymer defeated exceptional players Magnus Carlsen on Wednesday and is now fighting for $ 200,000 prize money in the final.
Again and again Carlsen and Germany’s top talent Keymer have met in recent years. Again and again Keymer was about to win, and again and again Carlsen pulled his head out of the loop. Now the 20-year-old German has finally made it. In the second semi -final game, he defended himself brilliantly against the Norwegian “final” Carlsen and fought a draw, which was enough for the final after his victory in the first game.
Keymer in top shape
In the preliminary round with some problems, Keymer is now in top form. His advantage: he can calculate well and thus plan trains in advance, but also has a good intuition. With the freestyle variant, the Mainzer can easily cope with it than the Indian Dommaraju Gukesh, new world champion in classic chess for a few months.
World champion Gukesh sang and unnecessary
Gukesh is also a strong computer, can calculate many positions well. It helps him to be able to prepare for long -term (also with the help of chess computers) in classic chess as an attacker and as a defender. There is no advantage with freestyle chess. The new world champion lost his quarter-finals without a sound. For him, it is now a maximum of fifth place on the Baltic Sea.
In the classic chess, the figures are initially set up extra harmoniously. This helps everyone, beginners such as professionals, to be safe and to gently integrate the characters into the game. With freestyle, on the other hand, the starting formation of the characters is drawn. So it happens that after only two trains a farmer is completely uncovered or a tower can be attacked directly.
Players such as Carlsen or Hikaru Nakamura (USA), chess world leaders for decades, may be able to adjust to new, often inharmonic positions on the board in freestyle – and then activate all the figures and attack them harmoniously. Similar to the classic chess, this is the way to victory.
First big payday for keymer
Keymer, 2022, also Vice World Champion in Schnellschach, acts these days like the most versatile of the increasingly stronger chess Youngster. For him, the new tournament series is also financially a blessing. For years he had unsuccessfully searched for sponsors, spoke in interviews of 60,000 euros, which he needed as a professional player per season.
Now he has at least $ 140,000 in Weissenhaus as a finalist, in the event of a win it would be $ 200,000. The tournament on the Baltic Sea is the start of a global tournament series, in which a total of four million US dollars are distributed. These are new dimensions in chess sports.
New tournament series relies on chess streamer
It remains unclear how well the freestyle variant can be monetized. The games are spectacular, many positions new – but even great people find it difficult to see through and explain freestyle games, especially for chess laymen. There are no transparent numbers of how many fans watch worldwide. In order to win a new audience, freestyle boss and entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner therefore relies even more on the chess streamer this year.
Levy Rozman alias “Gothamchess” is part of the commentary team – he has almost six million subscribers on YouTube. The Botez sisters or Anna Cramling are also on site and have their own studios. Freestyle organizers did not use a press day with interview options for the classic media in order to spread all content over their own channels.
Dispute between Buettner and Fide (for the time being)
With Derrick Rose, a well-known NBA player has now invested in freestyle. He wants to do an event if the tournament series dropped by in Las Vegas in summer. Entrepreneur Buettner believes that his idea becomes a “billion dollar company”. The conflict with the World Chess Association Fide brought a lot of attention to him and his tournament. For months, both sides had argued whether a freestyle world champion was chosen.
Last Sunday, the players and organizers sat down and decided unanimously to do without a world champion title at least this year. Instead, a “freestyle chess champion” is to be chosen at the end of the year. A pragmatic solution for which it would not have needed months of sludge battle with the FIDE. It is all the better that it is now about sporting headlines.
Keymer in the final against Caruana or Sindarov
The two final games will take place tomorrow and Friday. Keymer’s opponent will be investigated in Tie-Break this evening between the Americans Fabiano Caruana and the surprise Javohir Sindarov from Uzbekistan.
This topic in the program:
Schleswig-Holstein Magazin | 12.02.2025 | 7:30 p.m.
