ladies and gentlemen a new chess drama has just dropped and this one is particularly spicy the people and the parties involved are Magnus Carlson hikara Nakamura Fay the international governing body of the game and more specifically aradi vorovich the president of fiday and last but not least Yan Henrik Butner and by extension freestyle chess uh which is the new disruptor in the world of Chess organizing those uh epic events uh across the globe this video will be split and edited which is pretty rare on this channel uh into a few parts first a recap of all the drama on social media second a reaction to a video that hikaro put out called why Magnus and Karu almost skipped the world rapid in Blitz third we will talk about Fay the international governing body of the game and their direct involvement in this drama fourth I will tell you a bit more about freestyle chess why they're here and why they matter and last but not least we will talk about the PCA and go back to the year 1993 the last time something like this happened with Fay and it led to chaos let's begin this is part one on December 21st 2024 the freestyle chess Twitter account because I'm not calling it X put out a tweet that says freestyle feed and world championship titles on Thursday December 19th 2024 the world's top chess players associated with the freestyle chess players club fcpc reached an agreement with arar dorov president of the international Chess Federation the agreement was facilitated by the freestyle chess operations with specifically Magnus Carlson hiar Nakamura and Danny wrench the chief chess officer of chess. com the world's leading online chess platform while the fcpc and Fay continue amicable discussions regarding the mutual recognition of future world championship titles both organizations emphasized their shared commitment to collaboration and respect regardless of the outcome of these discussions Arad dorov directly addressed Magnus Carlson and hikara Kamura stating players will not be affected in any way they can decide on their own and fiday will not take any negative action therefore all players especially the 25 members of the freestyle chess players club may continue to participate in all freestyle chess Grand Slams as well as in all Fay tournaments and the very next day on December 22nd Magnus Carlson tweeted let's keep growing the game in between those two things came the mysterious Hikaru YouTube video about almost skipping the world rapid and Blitz championships which begin at the time of recording this video in 3 days here in New York city so all of this breaks out and apparently Magnus and Hikaru almost didn't play the world rapid in Blitz and that was enough to make this video but right before I sat down to do it we got a tweet allegedly from AR cardi zorovich himself I note the Press releasee issued by the freestyle chess players club while my quote has been presented accurately I shall clarify that my decision as fiday president was based on direct communication with the players however the full press release was not agreed upon with me and it includes significant inaccuracies that misrepresent the situation fiday remains committed to maintaining transparency and fairness and we will issue a statement on this matter next week signed by the fiday president aradi vorovich now before I get into this video I haven't spoken to arcadi I haven't spoken to Freestyle chess I haven't spoken to Magnus and I haven't spoken to Hikaru now theoretically that would be the journalism thing to do or try to get to sources in the Chess World but this seems like a very mysterious and cryptic matter where I highly doubt any of these people would speak to me because they're too busy putting out obscure social media statements I'm really confused however I think knowing what I know about the history of Chess over the last 30 years and the history of Chess in particular over the last three years I can sort of connect the dots you know that Meme with all the red lines and the crazy conspiracy guy that's going to be me in this video but I actually think I'm going to make quite a bit of sense so we now have four posts by the parties let's jump into part two hikaru's YouTube video about almost skipping the world rapid and Blitz there's two main points that hikaro made in this video that I would like to show you here they are basically what this is stating is that if players are going to play in the freestyle chess events which are being organized um by by y yon Henrik Butner the players can play him both now I don't want to get deep into the weeds of exactly what Fay was saying or threatening and all that other stuff but there was a world where the players were going to be forced to choose between playing in that or playing in Fay events now the main reason that would occur is if Fay sees them as a threat I think Fay looks at themselves as the governing body of Chess and they should have all the power if I'm being honest honest about it um the reality is if we're looking at the current chess landscape and this is not to like really slam the you know try and be really negative about F and slam them um but the fact is the vast majority of chess players currently do not make their money from Fed so ultimately after listening to Hikaru it sounds like fed may have a problem with players participating in the freestyle chess Grand Slam tour but that wouldn't make any sense because chess players participate in the Champions chess tour they participate in the grand chest tour they participate in tournaments not organized by Fay and they even play let's say title Tuesday tournaments so I don't think that's the big issue here I'm sure there is something to do with the fact that there is a world championship title being thrown out potentially so here's my theory is it about the world championship official random did you know for example that Hikaru Nakamura is the defending world champion of Fisher random Fisher random is called Fisher random because it was invented by Bobby fiser it was then later changed to chess 960 also chess 9 LX for Roman numerals I suppose and lately freestyle chess I got to tell you of all the names probably freestyle chess is the best one but is that the argument here that the world championship offish random has sort of not been able to get a lift off the ground there's only been a few of them they're sort of inconsistent is is that the argument now before we move on to part three again I reiterate the video is titled both Magnus and hikaro almost skipped the world RPP in Blitz this must have been a pretty heated back and forth not just we want to call it the freestyle Chess World Championship I mean if it's if it's that simple we're going to get into a little bit more of that in part number three in terms of naming rights but this is pretty intense I'm not sure that was ever fully addressed and elaborated upon in the video so fascinating stuff let's keep going in part three I promised we would discuss fed look Fay just celebrated 100 years of existence it's the international governing body of the game Fay doesn't just govern things like the World Chess Championship or the candidates or the World Cup which are their three premere tournaments they also do all sorts of other things they have programs in schools they have programs uh in prisons they have programs for folks with disabilities I mean for God's sake they are literally the international rating system any tournament you play locally you probably have to submit to feedat a rate they do a lot of good I mean it's not easy to just like throw them aside and say we're going to implement a whole new rating system but historically there has been you know a little bit of attention and we'll talk about that later in the video between the players and fed's ability to bring in sponsorship and money on the level of a FIFA which is what Hikaru said but again specifically in this case there is precedent for the name rights of a world championship look no further than April 2022 when chess. com wanted to announce the chess.
com World Championship take a quick look hey everyone that's right we actually are launching the first ever chess. com World Championship with a million dollars in prizes anyone can play anyone can win and everyone will have a chance to take home their part in this $1 million cash prize event because regular prizes will be available even for non-title players but literally 8 days later this happened chess. com announces the chess.
