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Press release
The new World Chess Champion Gukesh is joining: Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 kicks off / Open qualification for the last ticket
Weissenhaus, December 2024 – The new World Chess Champion Gukesh Dommaraju will take part in the opening tournament of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 in Germany. The 18-year-old Indian made the commitment shortly after winning the title. From February 7 to 14 at the WEISSENHAUS Private Nature Luxury Resort, Gukesh will face two former world champions: Magnus Carlsen, who has been leading the world rankings for more than 13 years and is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all times, and his idol, Viswanathan Anand, the father of the Indian chess boom.
Cheered by millions of his fellow countrymen, Gukesh snatched the title from defending champion Ding Liren in the last game of the World Championship match in Singapore. Since December 12, the exceptionally talented player from the southeastern Indian metropolis of Chennai (formerly Madras) is the 18th and youngest World Chess Champion in history.
"It was always clear to us that we wanted the reigning world champion in the field at the start of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in WEISSENHAUS," says Freestyle co-founder Jan Henric Buettner. 'Now we are glad that it worked out so quickly.' At the Baltic Sea, in an elite field of top players, the world champion will have the opportunity to prove his class in Freestyle as well.
"I'm looking forward to the challenge," says Gukesh, who was already part of the Freestyle premiere in February 2024 in WEISSENHAUS. Freestyle Chess should suit him. During the three-week World Championship match, Gukesh revealed that he prefers to play chess with a classic, long time control and that Freestyle is his favorite chess variant. At the Grand Slam Tour, he gets both: Freestyle played with a classic time control.
With the world champion's confirmation, nine of the ten WEISSENHAUS participants have been lined up. The tenth starting place goes to the winner of the open qualification, which begins online at chess.com on January 4. All chess fans are invited to take up the challenge in two open online tournaments on January 4-5.
Here, too, they will face strong opponents. In the further course of the qualification, the winners of the two opening tournaments will face the members of the Freestyle Chess Players Club, all of them super grandmasters. In the final on January 8, the remaining WEISSENHAUS ticket will be at stake.
The nine confirmed participants:
- Magnus Carlsen (Norway, number 1 in the world rankings)
- Fabiano Caruana (USA, number 2)
- Hikaru Nakamura (USA, number 3)
- Gukesh Dommaraju (India, number 5)
- Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan, number 6)
- Alireza Firouzja (France, number 7)
- Viswanathan Anand (India, number 10)
- Levon Aronian (USA, number 11)
- Vincent Keymer (Germany, number 19)
About Freestyle Chess
Entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner and world no. 1 Magnus Carlsen founded Freestyle 2024. Freestyle is chess – with a twist: the setup of the pieces on the back row is randomized before the game. This eliminates the need for traditional chess opening theory, making every game new from the start. Players navigate uncharted territory from the first move.
After the inaugural WEISSENHAUS Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge tournament in February 2024, the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour will begin in February 2025 with the first of five tournaments: Weissenhaus/Germany (February 7-14), Paris/France (April 8-15), New York/USA (July 17-24), Delhi/India (September 17-24), Cape Town/South Africa (December 5-12).
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