Classical act: Despite evolution of chess, purest form of sport is here to stay

A couple of days ahead of the World Championship, Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana had checked into Singapore.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

In an alternate world, the former, the World No. 1 across all three regular formats (Classical, Rapid and Blitz), would have arrived in the city-state to play the final. Now? Not so much. He had arrived with Caruana, the World No. 2 in Classical, to play a couple of games of freestyle chess, a variant of the game. In this game, the starting order of the pieces on the back rank are randomized. So, as D Gukesh and Ding Liren checked into a plush hotel for the World Championship, Carlsen and Caruana, with a bevy of photographers, sailed off on a yacht to play a couple of freestyle games.

Carlsen won the series—of course he won the series—before posting something provocative on X. "Freestyle > Classical." He, of course, knew what he was doing. In less than 24 hours, the World Championship's first game was about to get underway. On November 25, less than two hours after the final began, Emil Sutovsky, the CEO of the world body (FIDE), couldn't resist. "Classical > any other," he wrote on X.

Welcome to the battle to preserve the board game's purest version and its immediate siblings in the face of increasing alternatives.