Magnus Carlsen Wins the Freestyle (Chess960) World Championship

2/16/2026 at 1:17:37 PM

For those wondering why Nakamura (who we're used to seeing winning, or in the top 3 in chess960 tournaments) isn't there

> Hikaru Nakamura, the 2022 Fischer Random World Champion, declined his invitation to the event, citing the changes in the format, rushed arrangement, reduced prize fund, and his focus on the upcoming Candidates Tournament 2026. He said he had been invited to the first leg of the 2026 Freestyle Tour, with the same format and prize fund as the 2025 tour; however, a few days before the announcement of the world championship, he was informed there would be no year-long tour. Instead, only a three-day event with rapid time controls would be held, and it would be called a World Championship. He called it a "hastily arranged tournament with less than 1/3rd the prize fund it originally had", and lamented that the classical length format from the first event in 2025 wasn't continued.

by sebstefan

2/16/2026 at 12:39:50 AM

How long do chess players typically remain at their peak for? According to wikipedia, Magnus is currently 35. Is it impressive to be winning at 35? Would we expect to see his performance drop off in the next 5-10 years?

Even if he is still capable mentally and physically, I would think the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

by freetime2

2/16/2026 at 3:17:56 AM

On average players start declining in their mid to late thirties, just about the age of Magnus (and Hikaru). But even with that decline, it's not like they simply can't play anymore. Drag Kasparov out of retirement and he's still going to be an extremely strong player, even in his 60s.

And a lot probably comes with environmental rather than physical issues. Staying at the highest level in chess requires never-ending opening preparation and study. This same is about the time that kings of the game have made their dominance clear to the point that there's just nothing more to achieve, start having families, and so on. It's going to be very difficult to maintain motivation.

The rise of freestyle chess could viably see players extending their dominance for much longer, because there's currently believed to be no realistic way to do impactful opening prep in that game.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 6:40:13 AM

I think motivation really is the key term here. Magnus is a five-time world chess champion, in a complete league of his own even when everyone else was literally only prepping to defeat him. He held the world champion title for ten years and eventually just declined to defend it. And that's relatable, if you're at the absolute top for ten years and no one manages to put a dent to it, what else is there? I think most people would look for new challenges and ways to fulfill themselves after that.

by Etheryte

2/16/2026 at 7:55:10 AM

He declined to defend it because he disagreed with the way FIDE was organizing and managing the tournament. I believe this is around the time they threw him out of a tournament for wearing jeans, when he was not the only competitor present in jeans.

I think it's nearly universally accepted that his streak ended on a technicality rather than a legitimate decline/defeat.

by Taek

2/16/2026 at 8:41:35 AM

Absolutely not. He refused to defend his classic title in April 2023, citing a lack of motivation for this format.

The "Jeans" controversy happened during the Rapid championship in December 2024, nearly two years after.

It's universally accepted that his streak Classic Championship ended because of his lack of motivation, not on technicalities.

by enizor2

2/16/2026 at 12:16:29 PM

I think it's more that he wanted to go out undefeated, rather than lacking motivation. Or rather the former driving the latter.

He made 5 title defenses. Two were against the previous generation of players, and he did extremely well. 2 were against players of his generation and were anything but compelling victories. He only won a total of 1 classical game in the 24 played, and that was in a must-win scenario because he had just lost for a final record in these matches of +1 -1 =22. And finally there was his match against Nepo which was looking to be another extremely close match until Nepo lost a critical game, and then went on monkey tilt, as is his reputation - proceeding to play horribly for the rest of the match and get wiped.

In an interview with Rogan, Carlsen stated he felt he peaked a bit before his match against Nepo, and so he probably did not view his chances of success in a world championship match as especially high. So he was going to have to spend months preparing for a match he could very well lose which would certainly tarnish his reputation as the GOAT of chess. I think this is why he couldn't find the motivation.

For instance there were new world records just around the corner. The most successful world title defenses is 6 and that was back in the early 20th century. With one more he could have surpassed Kasparov and at least tied the record.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 7:46:56 PM

Magnus has always been unhappy with the format of the WCC cycle. He first skipped it in 2011, when he was already the top-rated player but not yet champion (https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-quits-world-champion...), and very nearly skipped it again in 2013.

by FreakLegion

2/16/2026 at 11:56:48 AM

Actually he recently stated that he IS still disappointed about that whole incident because nothing changed and is currently backing up hikaru on drama around similar issues.

The motivation issues can stem from poor management :)

by kachapopopow

2/16/2026 at 8:01:39 AM

From what I recall, he automatically lost that one game but was not thrown out of the tournament. Eventually he just stopped playing the world championship altogether, which is when he lost his title.

by Pay08

2/16/2026 at 8:42:40 AM

I don't really follow human chess, but I wonder what the new nr 1 player thought of themselves after essentially becoming the "best player in the world who doesn't wear jeans." Must be so frustrating to know there is something left to achieve but your league's shenanigans will prevent you from achieving it in an official and prestigious manner.

by sigmoid10

2/16/2026 at 10:21:38 AM

The jean controversy was a couple of years after Magnus stopped defending the title. It has nothing to do with it. Magnus just doesn't care about the format of the world title.

I think something broke for him while playing Caruana in 2018. The classical games were a snooze fest of defensive plays after defensive plays and everything was settled in the rapid tie break in a fairly unsatisfying manner.

He is not the first to complain about that by the way. Fischer hated the format too.

The freestyle championship was better in pretty much every way.

by StopDisinfo910

2/16/2026 at 10:45:18 AM

There was no snooze fest though in 2018 WCC. The games were extremely exciting, with unbalanced pawn structures. They all ended in draws only because of their strong defensive skills and a touch of luck in a few games.

by hveksr

2/16/2026 at 1:11:34 PM

Unbalanced pawn structure is a feature of the Sveshnikov Sicilian but Caruana had done a lot of prep and it was obvious. Carlsen quicky left the main line for the boring 7. Nd5. Plus, Carlsen missed a lot of good moves because he had to play it safe. To me, it was boring chess of the highest level.

A lot of it felt like watching engines by proxy. One prepared well on a very complex opening. The other found the best meta counterplay and held until he reached the tie break.

Game 12 is a travesty. It was clear he just wanted to move to rapid.

by StopDisinfo910

2/16/2026 at 11:52:47 AM

In my experience many highly competitive people care mostly about the win itself, and less about the how.

by n4r9

2/16/2026 at 4:53:08 PM

But that's it. There was no win because the opportunity to even compete was taken away. Imagine you train your whole life and finally win the Olympic Gold medal, but everyone knows it's only because the true nr 1 ignored to compete in this format.

by sigmoid10

2/16/2026 at 5:45:21 PM

Winning a title is never about facing the greatest possible opponent. Even the people who show up aren’t at their absolute best, but consider everyone who doesn’t devote their lives to the sport. The greatest potential chess player of all time likely does something else with their lives.

Without prep Magnus would be vastly less likely to win, and he’s not doing the prep because he’s not competing. How exactly is that different than someone not devoting themselves to the sport 20 years ago?

by Retric

2/16/2026 at 9:57:50 PM

Is it though? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You're making some pretty bold assumptions about competitive athlete psychology here.

by sigmoid10

2/16/2026 at 10:25:41 PM

I make no claims about what’s going on in people’s heads here just the underlying reality.

I was pissed I didn’t go to nationals in high school largely because I got no sleep the night before due to a crappy hotel stay. Losing a close game to board 1 while trying to stay awake sucked, but I was hardly the only person off my game, so that’s just how things workout.

by Retric

2/16/2026 at 12:05:32 PM

It's the ability to concentrate that starts to go.

Kasparov have talk about this. Older players can play at a world-class level for the first few hours, but their ability to maintain intense concentration declines as the game progresses. Most blunders by older GMs happen in the 5th or 6th hour of play. Older players also can't recover from earlier intense game next morning as well.

According to Kasparov older players get "calculation blackouts" and inability to visualize the board.

by u1hcw9nx

2/16/2026 at 1:55:02 PM

Can you link to the interview? Sounds interesting.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 12:20:39 PM

> The rise of freestyle chess could viably see players extending their dominance for much longer, because there's currently believed to be no realistic way to do impactful opening prep in that game.

For those out of the know like me, the tldr seems to be that it shuffles the positions in the first rank - symmetrically with your opponent, but not the usual rook/knight/bishop/royal both sides. So you can't study openings well because you don't even know the starting position.

https://www.freestyle-chess.com/fc-players-club-rules/

by OJFord

2/16/2026 at 10:42:02 PM

It goes to show my expertise in chess that I watched a whole encounter and it looked exactly the same as regular chess with castling and all.

I don't know if I would call the positions symmetrical, though, they seem mirrored(I just checked and regular chess is mirrored as well).

by avadodin

2/16/2026 at 3:32:21 AM

Vishy's still a top player at 56

by mgfist

2/16/2026 at 5:11:23 AM

He does not play classical because it would immediately reduce his rating. Gelfand plunged. He would too.

by aaa_aaa

2/16/2026 at 3:03:42 PM

Yes the stamina needed to play classical tournaments is not as there anymore, but he's still very very strong. He just came in second at Tata Steel Rapid, which although is not classical, is still an indication of strength, albeit without the emphasis on endurance.

by mgfist

2/16/2026 at 9:42:41 AM

Yeah, I think the motivation angle is hugely underrated. At that level everyone is already insanely strong, so the difference often comes down to who's still willing to grind 6-8 hours a day on prep for marginal gains

by BrtByte

2/16/2026 at 11:26:19 AM

For example, Anand did very well in a recent rapid and blitz event amongst youngsters. But Anand was drubbed by Kasparov in a recent Freestyle event.

by manojlds

2/16/2026 at 1:31:57 PM

Most players actually peak in strength around age 35 [1].

But Carlsen has been number one for more time than any player for him, safe Kasparov [2]:

- Kasparov 255 months at number 1

- Carlsen 188

- Karpov 102

- Fischer 54

Bonus nuance: Carlsen has the longest unbroken run of 174 consecutive rating lists

[1]: https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-age-related-decline-in-che...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_numbe...

by thomasahle

2/16/2026 at 1:25:28 AM

Anand reached world #1 ranking at 38, managed to win a world championship and defend the title for a decade in his late 40s, and remains in #13 in his 50s right now.

by porphyra

2/16/2026 at 6:48:39 AM

Top players who stay active tend to stay above 2600 for a long time. Short was continually active and while not at his peak was in the top 100 well into his fifties. Mickey Adams is still in the top 100 at 54. Korchnoi was world class into his 70s. Vasyl Ivanchuk, at 56, nearly won Tata Steel Challengers. If a player falls off hard in their fifties it’s generally in part “not wanting to try as hard”.

by adw

2/16/2026 at 4:59:25 AM

If you don’t play your rating stays the same. Pretty common for inactive 2600+ players.

by pm2222

2/16/2026 at 5:47:35 AM

"on average" doesn't mean some outliers don't exist

by b00ty4breakfast

2/16/2026 at 3:43:46 AM

Well he hasn't played a classical game in a year or so.

by akkartik

2/16/2026 at 6:54:28 AM

I think the question is different for the typical chess player compared to those at the very top. And at the very top we don't have that much data... going back to Fischer, he had a short career and disappeared by 32, but not really for lack of ability. For Karpov, his reign lasted about 10 years from age 24-34, but even after that he was in the top 3 or top 5 for another 15 years until he retired in his 50s. Kasparov reigned for 20 years, retiring at the top at age 41, and is maybe most impressive for defeating his same-generation rival Karpov while also holding the newcomers of Kramnik and Anand at bay. With Kasparov gone those two battled at the top for another 10ish years into their late 30s and mid-40s respectively (and I'd give the edge to the older Anand) before Magnus won the championship in 2013 and has been dominating for 13 years since. So to summarize, I don't think it's that "impressive" to still be winning at 35, he can probably keep winning for quite some time to come. He probably won't surpass his peak ELO though.

by Jach

2/16/2026 at 9:09:52 AM

> his same-generation rival Karpov

Karpov is 12 years older than Kasparov.

by tpm

2/16/2026 at 10:33:27 AM

Good point, it was sloppy of me to call them same-generation, I distracted myself with thinking about Kasparov's long reign at the very top which I view as defining a sort of competitive era ("generation") that was shared for the majority of Karpov's active career at the top levels as well, even though it extends past that and Karpov had his own period prior to the Kasparov rivalry. It's interesting to bring that back to the question of how much age matters though since Karpov kept playing and was also still very strong against the even newer players (Anand and Kramnik being 18 and 24 years younger) for most of the 90s too.

by Jach

2/16/2026 at 12:49:13 AM

Kasparov remained the n.1 player until his retirement at 42, we can likely expect no less from Magnus

by flaviolivolsi

2/16/2026 at 1:40:22 AM

Magnus is in uncharted territory here. We won't really know the answer to this question for quite some time.

by bmurphy1976

2/16/2026 at 11:35:34 AM

Forgive me if the answer is obvious (I don't follow chess), but what is uncharted about it?

Reading other comments like this one - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47031715 - it seems like there isn't enough data for there to be typical expectations, but that it isn't uncharted?

by swores

2/16/2026 at 12:51:46 AM

Is there really a decline with age when it comes to chess? I’m not sure he will really decline until he reaches his retirement age.

by simbleau

2/16/2026 at 1:35:18 AM

For some concrete numbers, there are only four players over 50 years of age in the top 100 at the moment by live ratings[0]. They are ranked #13 (age 56), #89 (age 53), #95 (age 54), and #97 (age 57). In their primes these players were ranked #1, #10, #4, and #3 respectively.

[0]: https://2700chess.com/?per-page=100

by traes

2/16/2026 at 2:20:05 AM

Isn't he playing Chess960 because he started finding standard chess boring? And wasn't that why Fischer worked on it in the first place? Experts might get bored of it by the time they're 50.

by dehrmann

2/16/2026 at 2:35:13 AM

The reason the top pros like chess960 is because they don’t need to spend hundreds of hours of opening preparation, they can just sit down and play.

Caruana (the guy who lost to Magnus), mused in a podcast that chess960 feels strange as a competitor because he doesn’t really prepare (because there are far too many openings to study) and said it feels like he’s getting paid for much less work.

by peter422

2/16/2026 at 5:00:30 AM

There are 960 possible starting positions and the chosen one is known at the start of the tournament where players are given 15m to prepare. I have observed that GMs aren't surprised when they see the board. They usually go "ah it's this one with the opposite bishops" or something similar.

by nurettin

2/16/2026 at 6:41:01 AM

When a chess player means "no prep" it probably still means more prep than any normal person would consider reasonable, because what would require you to sit down and take notes, move pieces and memorize, they can just do in their head getting coffee by now. So yeah they recognize almost all the patterns, it's just harder justify spending 1 month on an opening you won't even be able to use, but they still know how to play certain patterns.

by vasco

2/16/2026 at 1:48:43 PM

Oh, totally, I just wanted to highlight what beasts these players are and how wonderous it is to see them recognize so many starting positions that they already started showing familiarity despite how new the tournament format is.

by nurettin

2/16/2026 at 1:58:10 AM

This is some fascinating data, thanks for pulling it together.

by Taek

2/16/2026 at 1:01:14 AM

There's a sharp decline with age. Magnus himself says he's not as sharp as he was younger, even if he can compensate with experience.

by Trufa

2/16/2026 at 6:22:54 AM

There are a lot of confounding variables. Chief among them is someone at the top just wanting to get on with their life, start a family for instance, or basically anything other than study 12 hours a day.

It's hard to say it's cognitive decline for most of the people who just aren't working as hard at 40 as they were at 25.

by LanceH

2/16/2026 at 11:39:37 AM

If Chess960 or some other variant that doesn't involve as much rote work becomes sufficiently popular for long enough perhaps it will yield some valuable data about mental function versus age. At least a more holistic view than the studies we currently have.

by fc417fc802

2/16/2026 at 3:30:25 AM

He just has to gain experience faster than he loses sharpness.

by bee_rider

2/16/2026 at 5:23:12 AM

Just like everyone else

by cortesoft

2/16/2026 at 1:35:57 AM

For most people there is a cognitive decline with age, and chess is clearly a cognitive effort. Like with everything else: experience really matters, but you will simply be a bit less sharp over time and in a game where a tiny mistake can compound to a loss it really matters.

by jacquesm

2/16/2026 at 9:40:59 AM

I wouldn't be surprised if Carlsen remains competitive for another decade, especially in formats that rely more on intuition and less on memorizing massive opening prep

by BrtByte

2/16/2026 at 2:29:32 AM

Magnus' longevity has more to do with his willingness to continue competing than his actual skill. He's been pretty vocal about his issues with FIDE so I can see a world where he stops participating in FIDE events to focus on non-FIDE events that he enjoys more. He's already withdrawn from the Candidates which qualifies you for the World Championship.

by xmprt

2/16/2026 at 2:59:53 AM

Magnus not participating in FIDE events seems to have absolutely nothing to do with his longevity, it just means that FIDE is no longer meaningfully hosting THE world championship because they failed to attract the talent.

by gpm

2/16/2026 at 3:26:35 AM

Yeah if FIDE crowns some other champ without Magnus people wont think oh wow Magnus lost the spot, people will think oh wow FIDE lost the spot of being the kingmaker. chess.com is probably the more credible org for global rankings anyway

by bad_haircut72

2/16/2026 at 4:32:24 AM

You know that he already has stopped participating in the world championship organized by FIDE, right? The current 'world champion' is Gukesh Dommaraju, who took it from Ding Liren the year before, but of course Magnus would probably still be the world champion if he kept competing for it.

by angry_albatross

2/16/2026 at 5:15:38 AM

I think the point the poster was making, is that there is an asterisk beside Gukesh and Liren's world champ status. Nobody really thinks they're the actual world-champ, regardless of what FIDE says. FIDE failed to attract the best player, to even play.

by tux1968

2/16/2026 at 11:46:35 AM

By the same logic, why would anyone expect that the best player in the world for any given sport happens to compete in the olympics? The issue here is the semantics. FIDE titling someone "world champion" is at the end of the day no different than a burger joint claiming to be the best in the country after winning some competition or another.

To be clear, I don't mean to take issue with the competitions themselves.

by fc417fc802

2/17/2026 at 1:12:23 AM

Because pretty much every country in the world runs competitions to select the best in every Olympic sport from all who are interested in the sport?

by NetMageSCW

2/16/2026 at 8:20:57 AM

If you don't have the will to compete nobody is obliged to chase you.

by jojobas

2/16/2026 at 2:54:33 PM

Magnus obviously has the will to compete, he competes all the time.

Elite sporting events are absolutely obliged to chase talent, just like any other business is. If they don't, they quickly stop being the elite sporting event. There's a reason why athletes are paid so well...

by gpm

2/17/2026 at 12:27:36 AM

He expressed lack of will to grind prep for classical matches.

by jojobas

2/16/2026 at 1:14:01 AM

Context helps. A lot of really strong players are 12 years old.

by lethologica

2/16/2026 at 3:48:18 AM

The best young player today, by a wide margin, is Erdogmus. [1] He's not only the youngest grandmaster in the world, but showing an arguably unprecedented level of talent. He's 14 and his rating is 2669. Magnus is 2840. Chess ratings are difficult to explain, even to chess players - who might not appreciate how much harder improvement becomes at higher levels.

Suffice to say that 50 points is considered a major edge, and it increases exponentially so 100 points is much more of an edge than 2x a 50 point edge. Here [2] is a rating expectation calculator. If Erdogmus and Carlsen played a best of 10 match, Carlsen would be expected to win 97% of the time, draw 2% of the time, and lose less than 1% of the time.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya%C4%9F%C4%B1z_Kaan_Erdo%C4%9...

[2] - https://wismuth.com/elo/calculator.html#rating1=2669&rating2...

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 5:18:55 AM

He was not the youngest GM. But youngest to achieve 2600 rating. Point increse would not be so hard for him as he already can beat top 20 players.

by aaa_aaa

2/16/2026 at 5:49:34 AM

> He was not the youngest GM.

He is currently the youngest GM.

by selcuka

2/16/2026 at 1:35:49 AM

That context doesn't help me at all. Is a "really strong" 12yo in contention to win this particular competition that a 35yo won?

by smt88

2/16/2026 at 1:55:42 AM

No, even the best prodigies typically aren't winning super tournaments until 17 or 18, and we haven't really had one of those since Gukesh won candidates last cycle. The youngest player in this event was a 20 year old who placed last. (Though to be fair to the youngsters, 3rd and 4th place are both 21 years old.)

Generally speaking it's expected that chess players will peak around their late 20s and slowly decline from there, with sharp declines around age 50. It's unusual but not unheard of for players in their 40s to win major tournaments. 42 year old Levon Aronian won several last year, but it was considered a notable example of longevity every time he won.

In terms of raw numbers, there are currently 30 players in their 30s, 15 players in their 40s, 4 players in their 50s, and no players older that in the top 100. The youngest is 14-year old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who is considered the greatest chess prospect of all time.

by traes

2/16/2026 at 2:55:11 AM

Sorry, I thought you’d be able to make some logical inferences and I assumed you knew a little about chess.

In chess there’s a concept of strength, and ELO is used as a rough estimate of this. Further there are FIDE rankings like IM and GM that have certain requirements to achieve.

In most sports, there’s never such an age gap. Think of basketball or football. You don’t see 12 year olds hitting the equivalent of GM in those respective sports (going pro?) and being able to compete with the 35 year olds, do you? In most sports, they wouldn’t even be allowed to enter but in chess they could.

by lethologica

2/16/2026 at 3:44:54 AM

Obviously a board game will be easier for a child to compete at than a physical sport. Tons of Rubik's cube world records are held by 9 year olds. I don't see why any of this is relevant in answering the question "is it impressive to be winning at 35 in chess?"

Is your point that young kids have an advantage in chess, making it harder to keep up as an adult? They clearly don't. No 12 year old has ever been able to seriously compete with top players, at best they can hold a few draws or win a blitz game here and there. As far as I'm aware Judit Polgar was the only 12 year old to even break into the top 100, and she's an outlier among outliers. Right now the top 3 players in the world are all in their 30s, and there's only one player in the top 50 who's younger than 18.

by traes

2/16/2026 at 3:34:39 AM

Chess isn't like most sports so it's hard to extrapolate from them. The existence of ELO in and of itself doesn't help explain whether the super youngs are competitive at the highest levels unless you are saying they should be manually looked up, and you didn't say any of that so it's ridiculous to treat that like it was implicit or an obvious logical inference.

And they were right that "a lot of really strong players are 12 years old" doesn't by itself help clarify where they are relative to elite competition at other age bands let alone clarify what age band perform bests at the end of the day. Even now I still don't understand how "a lot of 12 year old are good" is to supposed to answer that even implicitly. If anything the natural reading of that would be an implication that they are among the most competitive, yet your elaboration says the opposite.

by glenstein

2/16/2026 at 3:31:47 AM

You have still failed to clarify whatever the hell you were attempting to communicate, all you’ve communicated is that you’re an asshole

by dufhfhrirjt

2/16/2026 at 3:58:46 AM

Oh no. Anyway.

by lethologica

2/16/2026 at 3:48:25 AM

There have only been 4 12 year old GMs in history, and none of them are competitive with Carlsen.

There's a lot more wrong with your comment that someone capable of making logical inferences can readily see, so I won't go into them.

by jibal

2/16/2026 at 2:31:39 AM

> the stress of training and competing at that level must get old after a while.

The stress of elite competition clearly has a shelf life, but Magnus is not overly old. Cognitive performance typically hits a plateau at 35 years old and begins a sustained decline after 45 years old.

The current youth wave of GMs is likely a function of compressed training efficiency. Modern players reach the 10,000 hours threshold much earlier because they had greater access to better training material and had better practice.

by chilicat

2/16/2026 at 3:30:43 AM

The youth wave of GMs is also going to be driven by a general increase in the popularity and image of chess. There's probably way more parents competently teaching their children chess than there have ever been. This may be playing an even bigger role than the training itself. For instance Gukesh's coach was actively running an experiment on him, and as a result he did not use engines in his training until he was already 2500+.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 12:52:43 AM

> Is it impressive to be winning at 35?

No. Multiple world champions have been older than that.

by p-e-w

2/16/2026 at 1:46:54 PM

Magnus peak rating was on 2014.

But he lost motivation afterwards, so that was not necessarily his peak, maybe he just yoloed a little after that. In his own words he's way past his peak. In recent interview he said his bullet no increment (most taxing on reflex/fast calculation) peak was around 7 years ago. I would assume his prime physical form came after his rating peak, because classical chess rewards deep study and consistency, and he admits all motivation was gone once there were basically no challengers and he distanced himself too much of the pack after Caruana also peaked hard.

But regardless, safe to assume his peak was 10-7 years ago. Still good enough to surpass current gen easily.

by heliumtera

2/16/2026 at 9:45:49 AM

He relinquished the world champion title because he thought defending it was boring (and not paying well). So one can say he is already past his peak. Chess is a mental game after all. But it will take many years before his rating drops noticeably though.

by bjourne

2/16/2026 at 2:47:33 AM

Like Lasker, Carlsen will still play with 60+.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 4:44:54 AM

George Sheldrick wrote an important program at the age of 75. He chose not to follow a chess career as a young man, but he could have.

by HarryHirsch

2/16/2026 at 5:42:37 AM

The most devastating fact of life is that physical (and mental) performance drops off at around mid 30s. Hakuho, by far the greatest sumo wrestler in history, retired at 38 when he should have retired years earlier.

by ThrowawayTestr

2/16/2026 at 11:37:17 AM

> The most devastating fact of life is that physical (and mental) performance drops off at around mid 30s

Different faculties peak at different times. While MIT/Harvard research shows that raw processing speed peaks early, it highlights that social intelligence and crystallized knowledge don't peak until our 40s or 50s [I]. Specifically, the Whitehall II study identifies age 45 as the inflection point for initial reasoning decline [II], while research from Stony Brook found that changes in brain network stability—the metabolic cost of cognitive maintenance—typically don't begin until age 44 [III].

[I] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761456733...

[II] https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d7622

[III] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416433122

by frankenstain

2/16/2026 at 8:12:03 AM

Yeah, it's hard to maintain physical performance as we are more susceptible to injuries which keeps us away from constant training, but our brain doesn't suffer by injuries, what allow us to go further. I think what makes people to drop at advanced age on "non-physical sports" it's to focus on other aspects of life over the sport because it's exaustive, if not impossible, to focus on both.

by yrds96

2/16/2026 at 1:48:31 AM

You... should watch him stream. That'll pretty much answer your questions. Age is far less relevant to chess compared to keeping up with the current "meta" (in gamer parlance).

by TheRealPomax

2/16/2026 at 8:46:34 AM

Can I ask the significance/reason for the "..." after "you"? Serious question - there may be an age or cultural divide between us and it's not a pattern of speech I'm familiar with. "You should watch him stream" on its own comes across as a friendly suggestion - and I just may do that. The "..." seems to change the tone, and I think possibly add a bit of snark, though I'm not sure if that's how it's intended or why it would be merited.

by freetime2

2/15/2026 at 11:31:25 PM

It feels like the cohort GM player pool is mentally cooked against Magnus.

Youngsters like Lazavik during the Speed Chess Championship or Sindarov in Freestyle were the most recent convincing wins against Magnus, but the historical mental edge that Magnus comes into each game after beating the brakes out of everyone is hard to overcome.

Magnus' time will come! But not today.

by saucymew

2/16/2026 at 12:35:31 AM

I don't think it's merely mental albeit it seems like even nervous Carlsen is cooler than his very focused opponents (see game 3 vs Fabiano where caruana had a completely winning position after carlsens blunder).

Carlsen has spent the core of his career mastering two aspects historically underlooked aspects of the game.

The first is the endgame, and there isn't much to say there. He's by far the best end game player by far and it's not even close.

The second are drawish locked positions where most GMs can't but see a draw. Carlsen realized that in order for it to be a draw his opponents still have to play perfect and he focused a lot on accumulating small but convincing advantages in those kind of games.

Another thing that should not be overlook: mental strength, like you point out.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 4:14:28 AM

They had a heart rate monitor at one of the freestyle events which physically affirms what you're saying here. Carlsen's heart rate was barely above resting while his opponents were invariably like they were running a marathon. Even when he was losing, he remained calmer than when his opponents were in normal positions.

I think that should be a normal part of chess competition. It provides some really interesting metadata for spectators. To some degree it also emphasizes the importance of something people don't normally associate with chess - physical conditioning. When your heart is pounding for hours and the cortisol flowing, you literally get physically exhausted.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 10:11:44 AM

> When your heart is pounding for hours and the cortisol flowing, you literally get physically exhausted.

Not only that, when the body enters flight response the brain makes mistakes.

When I started jiujitsu many years ago someone asked the professor what's the biggest difference between a white belt and black belt. He thought for a second and said something along the lines that everyone loses, even black belts. The difference is that a black belt will be calm and able to think of solutions until the very end, whereas someone who is untrained panics, isn't able to think, and makes mistakes.

Staying calm is a lesson for life really.

by matwood

2/16/2026 at 3:36:34 AM

IMHO a huge aspect of Carlsen mental strength isn't just the focused, at-the-game part, but we just see him enjoying Chess in many angles: not only he plays all styles, he streams relaxed, he plays Lichess and Chess.com; Chess is not only his job and passion, but it seems that he's also able to relax while engaging with it.

The only top-athlete that I see do the same is Max Verstappen, who is know to play competitive racing-sims online even hours before a real F1 race.

by fernandopj

2/16/2026 at 5:18:55 AM

Magnus has streamed playing chess while drunk, in a party/loud atmosphere, and had some very fun and exciting games. He's a blast.

by quantummagic

2/16/2026 at 8:19:36 PM

he's played other GMs while very drunk and playing bullshit openings.

He still wipes the floor with them. Guy is just a beast even compared with normal grandmasters.

by NickC25

2/16/2026 at 2:25:10 AM

Carlsen has always had a tenacity that allows him to come back from positions other players would give up on thinking to conserve effort to fight another day. Mental strength and stamina to stay in the fight has always been something that made him who he is.

You also can't underestimate physical stamina. Kasparov in his 5-3 result against Karpov in 1984-85 was eventually halted due to Karpov's exhaustion and losing 18kg over the match period.

by dwd

2/16/2026 at 3:18:28 AM

> losing 18kg over the match period.

woah that's crazy, I was not aware of this. That's like 36 weeks of aggressive weight loss.

edit: Looks like it lasted 5 months (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1984%...).

by pinkmuffinere

2/16/2026 at 4:06:53 AM

Chess ability seems distributed in a power law, rather than any sort of a normal distribution. There are repeatedly, throughout history, players that are just much better than everybody else, including the 2nd best player in the world. Lasker, for instance, was world champion for 26 consecutive years while also regularly dominating tournaments during that period as well. Kasparov was #1 for 21 years, and so on.

I'd go further to say I think this is true in many things. For instance if you're into wrestling, you know the name of Alexander Karelin [1] who ended his career with a record of 887 wins and 2 losses (both losses by a single point and both highly controversial). He was winning olympic gold, repeatedly, not only without a single defeat but without his opponents even scoring a single point against him. His ears tell the story - 889 world class matches, and he doesn't even have cauliflower ear.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Karelin

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 3:23:52 AM

Same exact thing happened in tennis. There was a whole "lost generation" of amazingly talented players who just basically shat the bed whenever they stepped onto the court with Djokovic, Federer, or Nadal. It wasn't until much younger players like Alcaraz and Sinner came on the scene, who weren't quite as overpowered by the aura of the Big 3, that the playing field finally leveled. (And now they themeselves are turning into those guys for everyone else, haha.)

by hyperbovine

2/16/2026 at 3:45:04 AM

Or maybe the “lost generation” was simply not as good as Djokovic, Federer, or Nadal.

by p1esk

2/16/2026 at 10:25:07 AM

imho Sinner and Alcaraz didn't solve the "overpowering aura" so much as the physical wear and tear took the trio down enough pegs to be much more attainable, and Djokovic is still competing impressively well.

by Ntrails

2/16/2026 at 5:46:45 AM

Quite chuffed someone else mentioned Djokovic, who is close to 39 and just played an Australian Open final. (Yes he got lucky with 2 freebies but he _did_ beat Sinner in the semifinal fair and square, and managed to win the first set before running out of juice)

by smnscu

2/16/2026 at 12:30:02 PM

I'm not sure why are you so sure that everyone plays worse when playing against some big name. I'd estimate that 90-95% of the top ranked players don't play worse when they play against big names.

by bmacho

2/16/2026 at 6:21:53 AM

We often think of chess as something you "learn" how to do. But players like Magnus are evidence that there's really some neurological "muscle" for chess which some people just have naturally more of than others. The way in which Magnus has just so obviously been so much better than every other player in the world for over 15 years now, to the point of becoming bored and refusing to continue competing in the classical World Championships, speaks volumes.

by wavemode

2/16/2026 at 6:43:11 AM

He doesn't play the classical championship anymore because it's 6+ months of daily hard work to prepare for it and he's already won it 5 times.

by peanuty1

2/16/2026 at 7:02:05 AM

You and I are saying the same thing.

by wavemode

2/16/2026 at 12:33:27 PM

"6+ months of daily hard work"

"to the point of becoming bored"

by bmacho

2/16/2026 at 4:02:49 PM

Did your eyes stop reading the "hard work" comment once you got to the word "and"?

Preparing for chess tournaments is always hard work. But the point is that he no longer has motivation to do that hard work to participate in the championship, since he's won it so many times and the result is never in doubt.

He said previously that he would defend his title again if his challenger was Alireza Firouzja. In other words there are certain things which would've caused him to be more interested /care more about competing, and thus motivated him to do that hard work. Make any sense?

by wavemode

2/16/2026 at 10:26:21 AM

I’d love to see a classical (or rapid/blitz) tournament where the players don’t know who they’re playing.

Separate rooms, arbiters make the moves for the opponent.

I think we’d see some interesting results.

by reassess_blind

2/16/2026 at 9:43:58 AM

Magnus it often feels like opponents aren't just playing the position, they're playing the idea of Magnus

by BrtByte

2/16/2026 at 12:12:35 AM

Are you referring to the odd individual game? Magnus beat Lazavik pretty badly in the SCC and knocked Sindarov out of the Freestyle final.

by FreakLegion

2/16/2026 at 1:13:35 AM

Individual games.

The ones that specifically come to mind are Lazavik vs. Carlsen, Speed Chess Championship 2025 Semi-Final, Round 3, and Sindarov vs. Carlsen, Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals 2025 in South Africa, Round 1 of the Group Stage Finals.

by saucymew

2/16/2026 at 4:41:26 AM

I assume you mean that beautiful tactical shot Lazavik found? In general these sort of games are the opposite of convincing. The reason is that we're all human and make tactical mistakes now and again, even more so in very rapid time controls. What generally defines players overall edge though is the ability to grind small edges, rather than stumble into knock-out blows.

For instance this is why Carlsen was so crushed by his loss to Niemann in 2022 (that led to the cheating claim controversy). Niemann actively avoided a draw and then systematically outplayed Magnus in a very difficult R+N v R+B ending. This is also why players like Erdogmus seem to have so much potential. It's not the tactics - which is basically a prerequisite to high level play, but his ability to just systematically grind down extremely strong players like MVL.

by somenameforme

2/16/2026 at 2:58:55 AM

> Magnus' time will come! But not today.

Hasn't Magnus' time already come, and isn't it still Magnus' time? He is #1 on all three lists[1] and so long that I have forgotten when he was not.

[1]: https://2700chess.com/

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 3:35:51 AM

I think they mean his time to be dethroned.

by bee_rider

2/16/2026 at 8:51:52 AM

Ah okay.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 12:00:17 AM

or maybe he's just very good?

by make3

2/16/2026 at 12:33:52 AM

Agree you don't have to overcomplicate it. Magnus is a generational talent.

by rybosworld

2/16/2026 at 1:57:03 AM

I would almost say “generational” is underselling it. Gretzky might be the only competitor that’s even comparable in terms of dominance.

by datsci_est_2015

2/16/2026 at 2:26:32 AM

Sir Donald Bradman would like a word...

by dwd

2/16/2026 at 12:09:47 AM

Brain ages. He will eventually decline just like any human being. Let's hope by then he will have the wisdom to smile when that happens.

by system2

2/16/2026 at 12:23:03 AM

Ageism also just one of these shitty unproven biases, like sexism, which is self-realizing by applying pressure to people who fall out of the mold even slightly.

He's 30 something, not 90.

by make3

2/16/2026 at 12:42:14 AM

It's not unproven, there's ample literature and research on the fact.

Besides, the age pool of chess itself confirms it.

There's a single player in his 50s in the top 50 of chess and not a single 60+ in the top 100.

Also, even carlsen himself says he's no longer as good as he was years before and his mind isn't as strong.

by epolanski

2/16/2026 at 2:25:19 AM

Regarding sexism; most tournaments in Chess (including the world championship) are fully open and are thus gender netral: anyone can participate regardless of sex/gender and will compete on equal footing.

Women only categories have been created to give women visibility because they mostly were not able to reach advanced levels in the open format.

Some women choose to compete with men (Judit Polgár being a somewhat recent example) but most go straight to the women only tournaments to have a shot.

The men vs women « bias » is not unproven, they litterally had to create entire categories of competiton to account for it.

by IMTDb

2/16/2026 at 12:35:00 AM

Cognition certainly declines with age at the population level. See e.g. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4906299/.

by kaonwarb

2/16/2026 at 12:39:29 AM

yes but he's 30 not 90, and knowledge and experience continues to accumulate through life, which can certainly compensate

by make3

2/16/2026 at 2:44:14 AM

The decline starts in your early thirties, and those who are pushing their cognition to its limit are the first to notice.

by DustinEchoes

2/16/2026 at 12:39:10 AM

If the skill you need to select for is tactical combinatorics, then Chess dominance as a function of age would seem to support the premise of ageism.

What ageism ignores is that outside of chess, prescience outperforms other measures of productivity.

by elevation

2/16/2026 at 12:57:10 AM

Can you provide at least three (3) peer-reviewed studies to support this?

by hikkerl

2/16/2026 at 12:37:53 AM

> Ageism also just one of these shitty unproven biases

You might be right, if we were talking about anything except chess.

Chess, unlike everything else, has a clear ranking system and lots of records for people to analyze. And unfortunately, the record is very clear: chess ability decreases after a certain age.

However, the decrease is more likely due to stamina than mental decline. Chess tournaments take a long time, and stamina definitely decreases with age. However, pro athletes demonstrate that you can probably go until around your early 40s before it becomes a real issue.

Having said that, it will be interesting to see how this generation does in the blitz formats as they age. Those will be less dependent upon stamina and a better measure of mental acuity for chess.

by bsder

2/16/2026 at 7:41:03 PM

He’s got a point. If the measure works for age, then let’s run it for sex, race, and religion. Then we can make conclusions about these categories and test if we’re willing to accept them. If we’re not, but we’re willing to accept them for age, then the balance of chance is that we’re ageist and just blinding ourselves to it because we are ageist.

I think looking at the data you’d have to conclude that women can’t play chess as well as men, that black men can’t play chess as well as white men, and that Judeo-Christian (and perhaps Hindu Brahmins) beliefs are just as indicative.

If we deny those conclusions as bigotry of immutable characteristics, it naturally leads to the age question.

by renewiltord

2/16/2026 at 10:17:37 PM

> I think looking at the data you’d have to conclude that women can’t play chess as well as men, that black men can’t play chess as well as white men, and that Judeo-Christian (and perhaps Hindu Brahmins) beliefs are just as indicative.

Actually, chess data suggests that all of them are as good as one another. As soon as you have enough candidates in the pipeline, magically, any specific group suddenly becomes as good as any other.

On the women's side, the Polgar sisters are both exemplar and counterexample. Clearly, given sufficient training, women CAN be rated highly (Judit cracked 2700). The fact that the women's side hasn't exploded just like the men's side can mostly be tracked to the fact that chess isn't considered a "feminine pursuit" worth putting the time into (that finally seems to be changing slowly in recent decades).

by bsder

2/17/2026 at 2:21:43 AM

In the history of the sport one woman made the Top 100 of the sport and this is supposedly evidence. And how many black? Count them out. They form at least a sixth of the world population. Now how many old? And perhaps then we find out that we can invent reasons for the defence of the old: traveling is hard, they have more responsibilities with children, they are more senior in primary career.

> The fact that the women's side hasn't exploded just like the men's side can mostly be tracked to the fact that chess isn't considered a "feminine pursuit" worth putting the time into (that finally seems to be changing slowly in recent decades).

A defence that doesn’t pass for software engineering, amazing. This old canard. The girls just don’t like engineering. It’s not feminine enough. Damore got whacked for this.

by renewiltord

2/15/2026 at 11:33:06 PM

Here are the replays https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-freestyle-chess-world-cha...

by haunter

2/16/2026 at 10:06:14 AM

What are the rules of castling in chess, and why is there castling in chess 960!?

I somewhat remeber reading that this format is about playing against book opening, and I thought there is no castling.

Magnus does a castling from king d1 rook h1 which I didn't even know its an allowed move! https://lichess.org/broadcast/fide-freestyle-chess-world-cha...

by mhitza

2/16/2026 at 10:24:38 AM

After castling, the final positions of king and rook are the same as in classical chess. Castling prerequisites are the same as in classical chess.

source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#Castling_rules

by mgemard

2/16/2026 at 3:34:07 AM

When I clicked one of the game, the initial position is wrong. I clicked another game and it was wrong as well. Am i wrong?

by zakki

2/16/2026 at 5:20:39 AM

>Chess960, also known as Fischer Random Chess, is a chess variant that randomizes the starting position of the pieces on the back rank to eliminate memorized opening theory and emphasize creativity from move one.

by haunter

2/16/2026 at 3:44:08 AM

Indeed. This is Chess 960.

by sedawkgrep

2/16/2026 at 1:04:41 AM

This is great, thank you for sharing.

by rglover

2/16/2026 at 4:20:16 AM

Magnus is just so tenacious. From a lost position he snatched a victory. Take a look at the five hour mark (plus or minus) for the crucial moments of the key game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6ey5Up4S7w

by purplejacket

2/16/2026 at 5:30:51 AM

Thanks for the direct link.

That game they're in at 5:00:00 was great.

by Quarrel

2/16/2026 at 1:21:00 PM

And don't miss the highlights at 3:10:22 and 4:23:65, I was on the edge of my seat!

by gynecologist

2/15/2026 at 11:11:43 PM

Fabi a bridesmaid again. The curse of being born in Magnus' generation.

by HardwareLust

2/16/2026 at 4:35:56 AM

It's like being a contender in the Jordan age, but this is arguably worse because of Carlson's longevity.

by dimator

2/15/2026 at 11:22:04 PM

The curse of being born in Smartphones’ generation :3

by gyudin

2/16/2026 at 8:12:15 AM

Are you claiming that Magnus is cheating?

by Pay08

2/16/2026 at 1:22:23 PM

He's saying he lost because fabiano caruana was too distracted scrolling on tiktok and youtube shorts instead of preparing for his match against magnus.

by gynecologist

2/16/2026 at 3:08:08 PM

Fabi is 33 and Magnus is 35. As I said, same generation.

by HardwareLust

2/16/2026 at 12:21:25 PM

Slightly tangential, but...

Is practicing chess at an adult age beneficial for the brain, or is it already too late?

by Anonyneko

2/16/2026 at 12:29:35 PM

It's never too late to improve your brain although there can be this false thinking that the brain needs "intellectual" hobbies to be healthy.

Yo give the most benefit, you should mix in hobbies like chess with things that stimulate your whole body and cause your brain to coordinate multiple systems at once. Something like dance is highly beneficial because you're not only listening to music, you're coordinating your movements, balance, emotions. If it's a social dance even better. You're coordinating your social skills as well.

I don't practice what I preach but I think social dance is the number one way to keep your brain healthy as well as your body if you're trying to be efficient.

by polishdude20

2/16/2026 at 12:23:56 PM

Any hobby where you learn stuff is beneficial for the brain at any age. The trick is that you have to enjoy it enough to keep doing it.

(chess, music, languages, programming, etc)

(edit - also physical hobbies benefit the brain in the same way: lifting, skating, karate, whatever)

by liveoneggs

2/16/2026 at 3:39:43 PM

I'm a firm believer that taking on something new every decade or so of life is an entirely good thing. I've watched so many people stop living in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. My heroes are people who keep doing what they love into their 80s and 90s, and keep finding new challenges along the way.

by japhyr

2/16/2026 at 3:21:34 PM

My understanding is that different types of exercises for your brain (chess, learning an instrument, etc) won't help prevent a decline, but that it might give you some tools to deal with it.

by elicash

2/16/2026 at 12:22:43 PM

Anything using your brain is good for it. "Too late" for what exactly?

by embedding-shape

2/15/2026 at 11:53:18 PM

I think Nakamura didnt play this time because of his Candidates prep. Otherwise I think Nakamura would have a slight edge on Carlsen in this game.

by smnplk

2/16/2026 at 1:39:42 AM

Hikaru is either in a slump or his skill is starting to age: hasn't won Titled Tuesday since November, hasn't won Freestyle Friday this year, came last in Speed Chess Championship, etc.

We'll see how well he does in Candidates this year to see if he's still a top contender. Although I do believe this is his last chance to fight for the world title.

by mythz

2/16/2026 at 2:25:35 AM

To be clear, "came last in Speed Chess Championship" actually means he came in 4th out of 16. He still made it to the semifinals. Even then he barely lost to Alireza, who is pretty universally considered a top 3 speed chess player. The loss to Lazavik was a lot worse, but it was still a close match against a strong player. He hasn't won a Titled Tuesday this year but he hasn't scored worse than 8/11 and he's still made the top 10. That's not as much of a slump as you imply IMO.

by traes

2/16/2026 at 2:46:23 AM

Sure he's still one of the top players, but he's not as strong this year and OP is suggesting he still has an edge against the GOAT, who this year:

- Has won Freestyle WC

- Has won SCC

- Has won 2x Titled Tuesday's

- Has won a Freestyle Friday

Hikaru can snipe a win off Magnus here and there, but I don't think there's any time control or format where he could win a long series of chess matches against Magnus.

by mythz

2/16/2026 at 7:47:41 AM

He could win bullet. No increment means his years of streaming bullet will let an edge when moving in the endgame, so he just needs to draw out the game long enough to get Carlsen either to 0 or in trouble. Somehow we got a chess format where mechanics matter :)

by Jean-Papoulos

2/16/2026 at 11:12:09 AM

His record in bullet in the Speed Chess Championship against Carlsen is rather unremarkable, although that is 1+1. Perhaps he would fair better at 1+0.

by traes

2/16/2026 at 2:47:40 AM

It isn't a slump at all, really. He had his first kid in December. He's preparing for the Candidates in March. Weekly chess.com tournaments are just, you know, going to be relegated to streaming content for a bit.

by FreakLegion

2/16/2026 at 8:14:55 AM

Isn't Nakamura the best bullet chess player?

by Pay08

2/16/2026 at 10:54:29 AM

He's up there for sure, but not clearly the best. According to him both he and Magnus think Alireza Firouzja is the best in longer matches of multiple bullet games.[0] I suspect he would give the edge to Magnus in a shorter match, but I haven't found evidence for this.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKXV9-dTq1I&t=2674s

by traes

2/16/2026 at 10:40:45 AM

Also he became a father[0] around that time. Everything adds.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikaru_Nakamura#Personal_life

by TheSilva

2/16/2026 at 12:53:22 AM

Candidates prep and also the entire Freestyle chess experiment has been a bit of a mess. Here's what he told chess.com[0]:

A few months ago I was invited to the first leg of the 2026 Freestyle Tour with the same format and prize fund. I let everyone know that I'd be playing there.

Just a few days ago I received news that there will be no year-long tour for Freestyle. The format for the only event to be held will be only three days and only rapid formats. Instead of the tour that was planned, Freestyle has joined forces with FIDE and are now calling it a World Championship. I think it might hold the record for most rushed arrangement for a World Championship title in history.

I truly enjoyed the first event in Weissenhaus in 2025, and it's a shame that the classical length format wasn't continued. Furthermore, this all feels like a hastily arranged tournament with less than 1/3rd the prize fund it originally had, and now it's attached to FIDE, which isn't a positive development in my opinion.

Despite many phone calls and messages from the organizer, I have decided to decline my slot in this event. I have an important tournament in the end of March/April to focus on, and that is where my attention will be.

[0] https://www.chess.com/news/view/freestyle-chess-fide-world-c...

by traes

2/16/2026 at 1:19:39 PM

by sebstefan

2/16/2026 at 1:29:41 AM

It's a very short, 3 day event: You have Fabi sitting right there in second place, and I don't think anyone is more focused on the candidates than he is.

Hikaru is getting older too, and it shows: I don't think he has a freestyle edge at all.

by hibikir

2/16/2026 at 2:10:02 AM

I think it's because he has a young child too. But I don't think there's an edge.

by Davidzheng

2/16/2026 at 3:48:15 PM

They say this eliminates (studied) openings because no one can study all the variations. I wonder how much of the game is figuring out how to get to “known” territory as quickly as possible. Vs. how much is literally terra incognita.

by gcanyon

2/16/2026 at 4:28:56 PM

It’s really hard to get known positions in most of the 960 openings. I think there are general themes for development for the format as well as some positions where you can get instantly mated, and there’s a lot of energy to avoiding that.

I will inject my own opinion: it’s exhausting to watch this format at a high level. You need to be working as hard as the players to understand their plans and it’s not cozy vs standard chess

by y-curious

2/16/2026 at 2:09:26 AM

The last match was crazy. It looked so ,,easy win'' for Fabi after Magnus's blunder that I was just fast tracking it as I was sure Magnus has no chance (especially while looking at the eval bar).

I feel sorry for Fabi not winning it, but of course there can be only one winner.

by xiphias2

2/16/2026 at 10:25:03 AM

Wait why are there separate mens and womens prizes?

by nanna

2/16/2026 at 1:41:06 PM

To encourage female participation and representation. Most people think it would be good for chess long-term to have a larger female player base.

by thomasahle

2/16/2026 at 10:55:15 AM

There are no men prizes/tournament. But there are women tournaments and prizes.

by hveksr

2/16/2026 at 1:49:22 PM

it's not "mens" prize btw, usually the tournaments are "women" and "open"

by Seasandthequote

2/16/2026 at 10:31:54 AM

There are currently no active women players ranked within the top 100 overall.

by andxor

2/16/2026 at 11:01:36 AM

Like a lot of men dominated spaces, even when we know ability is not a definying factor, culture is.

Many male domianted spaces are pretty antagonistic to women, making separate prize pools, tournaments and events allows for women to play in spaces where they are the mayority. Normalise their participation and open the door to better performance on the mixed queue.

by Arkhaine_kupo

2/16/2026 at 5:26:57 PM

> even when we know ability is not a definying factor

Spatial reasoning?

by pfannkuchen

2/16/2026 at 4:50:58 PM

There are "Open" (anyone can enter) and "Women" (only women can enter) events.

If you did not have the "Women" category, then you would see only men play in these events as there are no active women in the top 100.

by EnPissant

2/16/2026 at 12:21:00 PM

you know why.

by delaminator

2/17/2026 at 12:39:41 AM

Really bad chess might have been on to something here. Bughouse, chess960, and horde have been the alt chesses I've enjoyed the most.

by ece

2/16/2026 at 10:48:36 AM

It actually interesting that Carlsen (likely the best classical player of all time) hasn’t overfit classical chess to the point where it hurts his ability to play other variants.

by tmalsburg2

2/16/2026 at 9:37:46 AM

Interesting to see FIDE officially embracing Freestyle now

by BrtByte

2/16/2026 at 10:16:21 AM

Freestyle is great! My main OTB buddy and I have largely switched and it's completely changed our games. Much more fun!

by specproc

2/16/2026 at 5:05:12 AM

How many calories has he burned playing chess?

by triage8004

2/16/2026 at 9:19:38 AM

Chess is in such a sad situation again.

The world champion (which is determined for classical chess) isn't even remotely the best player. He's barely even in the top 10 and may soon fall out of that too. In terms of strength he's the weakest player to win in half a century even in absolute terms. And I can't think of any time in modern history of chess when such a low ranked player won.

We really need to do something to reinvigorate the game. Chess world championships used to be front page events. The winners would be stars and everyone knew their name. Now, even I don't bother to follow anymore.

by light_hue_1

2/17/2026 at 1:20:52 AM

> In terms of strength he's the weakest player to win in half a century even in absolute terms.

Gukesh is arguably stronger than either of Khalifman, Kasimdzhanov and Ponomariov, who won the FIDE title before it was re-unified. Also his current rating is higher than either Karpov’s or Kasparov’s were when they first won the title. His rating when he first won was about the same as Fischer’s when Fischer first won. Neither Kramnik or Anand were clearly the best player throughout the entirety of their reigns and both of their ranks fluctuated amongst the top ten positions.

by Mr_Minderbinder

2/16/2026 at 10:22:40 AM

I dunno, I think this says more about FIDE and the championship title than the state of the game.

Online chess is huge, streaming is huge. You do have these big personalities in the game, and an often unfortunate amount of drama.

People wrote chess off after Deep Blue, but the game is really going from strength to strength right now. It's just that classical isn't the focus.

by specproc

2/16/2026 at 9:46:24 AM

The title has always been about winning a specific match under specific conditions, not necessarily about who's 1 on rating at that exact moment

by BrtByte

2/16/2026 at 4:28:19 PM

I think the household names are perfectly able to start their own league and deprecate FIDE. Maybe they are already? This is a situation where the org needs the players more than the players need the org.

I think it was F1 auto racing that recently (10 or so) years ago went through a revolution that changed the rules (for fans, in that case) that dramatically increased the viewership of the sport, mainly because the previous owner was so out of touch with the times.

by gosub100

2/16/2026 at 8:56:09 AM

This URL just return empty content (while being http 200) for me.

by thrdbndndn

2/16/2026 at 1:35:48 PM

Sidenote: I didn’t know anything about Freestyle Chess before reading this, so I checked Wikipedia first[1]. Interestingly, the randomized nature of the format, its defining feature, isn’t strongly emphasized upfront, which may make it less immediately clear to newcomers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freestyle_Chess_Grand_Slam_Tou...

by wslh

2/16/2026 at 12:02:55 AM

Do the engines have a similar edge in Fischer Random and regular chess?

by throwpoaster

2/16/2026 at 1:02:34 AM

I'd expect them to have a larger edge in chess960 because humans can't prep openings like in regular chess.

by Marsymars

2/16/2026 at 1:50:22 AM

Do modern chess AIs do any form of opening prep? Like, do they bake any opening analysis into their engines? Or is it all pure search?

by josephg

2/16/2026 at 2:04:37 AM

Yes modern AIs have an entire opening database and generally have cached the first 20+ moves of the game (for most common openings) from a database of very deep searches identifying the best move. This is absolutely a form of opening prep for AIs.

That said, even without that database a modern AI will completely topple the best human at every common chess variant. Humans cannot defeat modern AIs in chess like games.

by Taek

2/16/2026 at 3:13:44 AM

Like my answer below, that's wrong. Even I have achieved a few draws or even wins against Stockfish in training games, and I am FM strength. From time to time you are happy to reach a simple rook endgame which happens to be won and the engine doesn't anticipate that (horizon effect). You still draw or lose 90% of those but you win 10%.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 3:50:23 AM

Either the engine was misconfigured, the hardware you were playing on was glitching or you are omitting something. There is no chance in the world that you can beat stockfish in standard time control.

by galkk

2/16/2026 at 4:31:22 AM

Just because you can not do it it does not mean that others can not do it. If you search for Lichess games where strong players play against (edit: strongest!) Stockfish (which, admittedly is not the full throttle Stockfish) you will find that Stockfish by far does not win all the time. Such is a claim which only inexperienced chess beginners and Stockfish fanboys make. Stronger players know that Stockfish is relatively better, and by a far margin, but – obviously – does not win all the time due to the huge drawing range in chess. Admittedly, winning a game gets more and more difficult with every year. And, to make you happy, I have never beaten Lc0.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 4:46:10 AM

> If you search for Lichess games where strong players play against Stockfish ([..]) you will find that Stockfish by far does not win all the time.

I'm sure some of those games are actually stockfish v stockfish or something similar. Its pretty easy to run stockfish or lichess locally and copy the moves from each engine back and forth.

by josephg

2/16/2026 at 4:52:25 AM

@josephg (for reasons I do not know there is no reply link below your post)

Sure, some people are cheaters. Some are not. There is no personal win in cheating against Stockfish. Usually strong players do it for training purposes, or to entertain their watchers when they stream. I actually remember having seen one who did that, and he drew. That was a party.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 5:17:40 AM

Yes. I hear this claim from above: "Some humans can beat stockfish."

Evidence given: "There exist some small number of games on lichess.org played against stockfish where the user won."

My counter argument is that games on lichess against stockfish don't imply a human beat stockfish. It could just be that stockfish (or other bots) can sometimes beat stockfish. And some humans surely use bots to play on their behalf in order to cheat in online games.

I don't know if any humans can beat stockfish. But I don't consider that to be strong evidence.

by josephg

2/16/2026 at 11:38:35 AM

> My counter argument is that games on lichess against stockfish don't imply a human beat stockfish. It could just be that stockfish (or other bots) can sometimes beat stockfish. And some humans surely use bots to play on their behalf in order to cheat in online games.

Also, Lichess' Stockfish runs in the browser (with all the slowdown that entails), plus is limited to one second of thinking time even on the highest level. It also has no tablebases and AFAIK no opening book. Even if you _can_ consistently beat Lichess Stockfish level 8, there's still a very long way from there to saying you can beat Stockfish at its maximum strength, which is generally what people would assume the best humans would be up against in such a duel.

People generally don't play unencumbered engines anymore because the result isn't interesting.

by Sesse__

2/16/2026 at 5:41:14 AM

Well, there is nothing I can do to prove to you that I did, as I can not travel into the past taking you with me. I know, I did win two or three games and drew approximately 25 out of approximately 500 training games. But I can not prove it. You have to believe or not.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 7:22:40 AM

I believe you. I just suspect stockfish was misconfigured, it wasn’t playing at its highest skill level or something similar was going on. That seems more likely. (I’d love to know for sure though).

by josephg

2/16/2026 at 12:51:50 PM

An extraordinary claim without any proof. Surely you believe the moon to be made of cheese, since we can‘t travel there to verify it‘s not?

by j-krieger

2/16/2026 at 3:16:04 PM

Yeah his claim is quite absurd really. If it was a weaker stockfish (bad hardware, older version etc.) then maybe. Modern stockfish pretty much crushes any and everyone. A draw alone would be extremely impressive, and maybe doable with enough luck from a top player. But even that is very far fetched nowadays. Let alone actually winning.

by copper4eva

2/16/2026 at 3:55:55 PM

Elsewhere in the thread he revealed that he achieved these results around the year 2015, which means we was playing against Stockfish 6 or earlier, estimated to have about 400 less ELO than today's Stockfish 18. Stockfish 6 didn't even have NNUE, so the real issue seems to be that he thinks his results from 2015 hold any relevance to the chess engines of today.

by Taek

2/16/2026 at 12:49:50 PM

Surely you have proof to back up this extraordinary claim? You said above that you won.

by j-krieger

2/16/2026 at 5:22:40 AM

Would you be willing to bet money that you can beat a properly setup stockfish, no piece odds and even time controls? I'll give you literally any odds you name and let you try an unlimited number of times until you give up. 100% serious.

P.S: You should not take this bet. You will lose. You are mistaken if you think you beat stockfish.

by baumy

2/16/2026 at 5:31:55 AM

The only bet I would take is that I can draw against Stockfish. But I am in general not betting. I also don't have the time currently.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 7:15:21 PM

If you're betting against modern stockfish, respectively, that's a terrible bet.

There are some games of knight odds Leela playing superGM's. For example, Hikaru Nakamura went 1 win, 2 draws, and 13 losses against LeelaKnightOdds at 3 minutes + 2 sec increment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYO9w3tQU4Q So that's a score of 2 out of 16. Which is apparently actually very good. I know Fabi played a lot of games too, and also lost almost all of them.

And that is with knight odds lol. And stockfish is ever better than Leela, but generally less aggressive and more methodical.

You clarified in another post that you had won back in 2015. I have no clue the strength of engines back then (I imagine still very strong of course), but a decade of growth is a lot. They're completely insane nowadays.

by copper4eva

2/16/2026 at 8:15:52 PM

I doubt that. Stockfish 11 years ago as you claim (which around then was rated approximately 2800), maybe. Stockfish today? Stockfish on Lichess is 3000 and that's not even running at full capacity. A fully supported Stockfish running on top hardware is currently 3650ish. It can avoid known draw lines and stalemate lines, and could absolutely crush the likes of Magnus.

You would lose every time, not even close.

by NickC25

2/16/2026 at 3:23:53 AM

Further, if the engine does not use an opening database and the thinking time per game is the same, then the engine will usually make the same moves, so you can learn from your errors. There are just a few chess engines which "learn" per default and therefore change their moves, like BrainLearn.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 4:01:28 AM

That's an extraordinary claim. What level was Stockfish and what were the settings for these training games?

by LogicalRisk

2/16/2026 at 10:25:04 AM

It is also not extraordinary to do that.

I have achieved these results around 2015, sitting at home, relaxed. I was not in a match situation observed by millions. Such a situation can knowingly lead to blunders like Kramniks overlook of mate in 2.

I also sometimes "cheated" by aborting the game when I was tired and continuing it the next day (if at all). That's what the player in a match can not do.

I also sometimes restarted a game at a specific position. Can also not be done in a match. Finally, they used better hardware in these matches. I had eight threads on my old Laptop and I used four of them. The Laptop itself was bought around 2005. Between 2000 and approximately 2020 I trained every day and I was on my peak. I am still around 2400 on Lichess today, without training.

So, I hope it does not sound that extraordinary any more. It isn't. Maybe it is now, but not then.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 3:16:23 PM

2015 stockfish is quite a different beast from 2026 stockfish. Stockfish didn't even add NNUE until 2020.

Based on what data I can find, it's estimated that the difference between the 2025 stockfish (stockfish 6) and today's stockfish (stockfish 18) is nearly 400 points.

That's the difference between Magnus Carlson at his peak and someone who doesn't even have enough rating to qualify for the grandmaster title.

So yes, the fact that you beat stockfish in 2015 doesn't sound extraordinary, because AI today is vastly stronger than it was when you achieved those results. What sounds extraordinary to people is your belief that you could repeat those results against today's top chess engines.

by Taek

2/16/2026 at 6:52:13 PM

Out of sheer curiosity, I did a bunch of research to understand just how dramatic a 350 point rating gap is in real word chess. Magnus Carlson, for example, has a 98% win rate against players >350 rating points lower than his own, with zero recorded losses.

In fact, there is only one game I could find in all of Chess history (Anand vs Touzane, 2001) where a super GM (rating >2700) dropped a classical game to someone more than 350 points below theirs (gap: 402 points). (it's estimated that there are between 2000 and 3000 classical games in history played between Super GMs and players >350 points below them) And it could easily be that Anand was ill, or suffering some other human condition which made his play significantly worse than his typical play for that game - which you would not see from a computer engine.

In other words, the Stockfish that you beat in 2015 would itself be expected to get 3-5 points (that is, 6-10 draws and 0 wins) in 500 matches against the best chess engine of today. The delta in strength is immense, and it is reasonable for everyone else in this comment thread to assert that you would have zero chance at all of picking up a draw against Stockfish 18 in a fair game of any time control, regardless of how many matches you played.

by Taek

2/16/2026 at 4:24:36 AM

I do not know the time controls anymore, but I always use the latest Stockfish with all available threads. No opening book, but I do not repeat lines to take advantage of that, because I play to train calculation. I guess hash was the (for my setup) normal 4096 MB.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 5:38:50 AM

Latest Stockfish with all available threads and no opening book is still well beyond any human. Elo ratings get a bit silly with computers, but we're talking an Elo of well north of 3000.

by LogicalRisk

2/16/2026 at 8:29:15 AM

For reference: The last serious match between the top human player and an engine was Brains in Bahrain, Kramnik–Fritz 7, in 2002 (already that should tell you something). Well, actually a broken and buggy version of Fritz 7, but that's another story. It was a 4–4 tie. On the latest CCRL list, Stockfish 18 outranks Fritz 8 (the oldest Fritz version on the list) by 947 Elo points _on the same hardware_. (For comparison, Magnus Carlsen's peak rating is 65 points higher than Kramnik's peak rating.)

Add to that 24 years of hardware development, and you can imagine why no human player is particularly interested in playing full-strength engines in a non-odds match anymore. Even more so in FRC/Chess960 where you have absolutely zero chance of leading the game into some sort of super-drawish opening to try to hold on to half a point now and then.

by Sesse__

2/16/2026 at 2:25:37 AM

But machines also can’t use opening prep like they do in normal chess.

by umanwizard

2/16/2026 at 6:23:12 AM

I expect this would hurt humans more than machines... but I'd love if someone with better knowledge than me of the current state of chess engines could chime in.

by Marsymars

2/16/2026 at 4:28:04 PM

Your intuition is correct.

by LogicalRisk

2/16/2026 at 8:29:51 AM

People have already built Chess960 opening books.

by Sesse__

2/16/2026 at 4:05:37 AM

Engines have a significantly bigger edge in frc. Humans generally know enough about openings to minimize mistakes for the first 10 or so moves (such that computers playing humans generally are trained to make a couple highly dubious moves to get far away from theory in the opening). engines on the other hand don't go based on theory and are just as capable in 960 as they are in regular chess.

by adgjlsfhk1

2/16/2026 at 2:26:59 AM

That's hard to answer because the advantage is essentially infinitely large. Engines never lose or draw against unassisted humans. Any modern chess engine, if it plays 100 games against any human (even magnus), will have a record of 100 wins, 0 draws, and 0 losses. This is true both in standard chess and Chess960.

by umanwizard

2/16/2026 at 3:12:06 AM

This is most definitely wrong. There will be some draws and even a few wins, though that's very rare indeed.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 8:00:01 AM

It technically could happen but hasn’t so far.

by dyauspitr

2/16/2026 at 3:36:07 AM

When is the last time a human has beaten a computer in a fair chess game?

by umanwizard

2/16/2026 at 8:07:14 AM

A fair match has never been played between humans and computers. Let's say we have a fair match:

    * 100 games, to have some statistical relevance.
    * One move per day, so that being tired is no disadvantage (engine can ponder all day).
    * Human has access to endgame tablebases and opening databases, like the engine.
    * Human can make notes and has a software like Chess Position Trainer, which can min max, like the engine.

If the human is a GM with Elo 2700+ I predict 25 draws and 5 wins for the human. The engine wins 70 games.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 4:06:26 PM

From the Stockfish docs at https://official-stockfish.github.io/docs/stockfish-wiki/Sto....

> Rating Stockfish against a human scale, such as FIDE Elo, has become virtually impossible. The gap in strength is so large that a human player cannot secure the necessary draws or wins for an accurate Elo measurement.

[1]: https://computerchess.org.uk/ccrl/4040/

by Bootvis

2/16/2026 at 7:18:53 PM

You're way off the mark here on modern engine strength.

There are many examples of top players playing Leela Knight Odds. And none of them even got remotely close to a decent record. Usually a few draws, and maybe a win. But almost entirely losses.

And that is with knight odds. Without that, zero chance.

by copper4eva

2/16/2026 at 12:37:16 PM

sheeeeeez

by hurios

2/16/2026 at 12:20:32 PM

thanks for the spoiler, great job

by delaminator

2/16/2026 at 5:37:53 AM

It really pains me that Carlsen looks dissatisfied rather than bored in that photo. I know it's lonely being at the top but come on.

by ThrowawayTestr

2/15/2026 at 11:05:58 PM

[flagged]

by cadamsdotcom

2/15/2026 at 11:08:10 PM

You might be surprised how little money there is in chess.

by eterm

2/15/2026 at 11:17:24 PM

Total purse was $300k, Magnus got $100k of that for winning.

by HardwareLust

2/15/2026 at 11:36:14 PM

Which confirms the point, right?

by 295fge

2/15/2026 at 11:47:59 PM

It's not chess but a variant. Maybe it has ~10-100 times less viewer base.

by bmacho

2/16/2026 at 1:40:54 AM

I suspect Magnus draws a similar level of attention regardless, it's probably closer to half the viewer base

by traes

2/15/2026 at 11:55:35 PM

I wish it was more popular - it’s more enjoyable to watch and play since it’s not nearly as much prep / memorization

by thatswrong0

2/15/2026 at 11:38:11 PM

100%.

by HardwareLust

2/15/2026 at 11:19:33 PM

1Password is sponsoring auto racing xD

by koakuma-chan

2/16/2026 at 2:55:12 AM

It is not freestyle, it is "play a random position chosen by an algorithm" style. This is boring. Let the players freely place their pieces in the start position, that would be of interest.

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 3:19:22 PM

I think that pretty much ruins the whole point of Fischer Random. The point is to not be able to open prep at all, and have to deal with a wide variety of opening possibilities. Too many to reasonable predict and prepare for past the first few moves.

With being able to place your own pieces, you can much easily dictate your opening beforehand. And I have little to no doubt top players would converge towards certain optimal placements. And then you'd be back to playing the same positions over and over, just like standard chess. Which is what Fischer Random attempts to stray from.

Also, on a more subjective note, quite the crazy opinion to call this format "boring". I haven't looked at these games yet, but the 2022 World Championship had some absolute crazy games. With crazy openings and positions that you just never get in standard chess.

by copper4eva

2/16/2026 at 8:34:10 AM

Originally Freestyle Chess referred to something else entirely, namely “anything goes” online chess: https://en.chessbase.com/post/scintillating-che-in-the-pal-c...

You were allowed to use engines, opening books and tablebases. You were allowed to play in teams (GMs were part of some). You were even allowed to bribe your opponents into losing! But it died out fairly quickly and now the name has been reused to mean Chess960.

by Sesse__

2/16/2026 at 8:52:13 AM

I wouldn't say it's "boring" (hence the downvotes, I imagine) - but this does seem like an interesting idea, to let the players choose their positions. Does such a style exist?

by squigz

2/16/2026 at 9:49:22 AM

It is called Placement chess, you can play it on PyChess. [1]

As far as I know no tournament ever used this rule.

[1] https://www.pychess.org/variants/placement

by nilslindemann

2/16/2026 at 10:28:28 AM

Apparently also called Bronstein Shuffle (which also sounds like a fun dance)

A key part seems to be alternating turns placing pieces. I wonder if this would result in top level gameplay converging on certain opening placements? If so, I wonder how not taking turns but deciding on placement privately beforehand might affect gameplay.

Anyway, maybe when the pros get sick of Chess960 they'll give this a shot :)

by squigz

2/16/2026 at 7:27:52 PM

It would be effectively be the opposite of Chess960 -- instead of reducing the impact of studying openings, it would add a whole genre of placement meta you'd need to study to be competitive.

by SauntSolaire