FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026

Friday, February 13: The tournament opens with a rapid round-robin stage, following the format used in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam events. All eight players face each other once with a time control of 10 minutes plus 5-second increment. The top four players advance to the semifinals, while the remaining players move into placement matches.

Saturday, February 14: The knockout stage begins with the semifinals and placement matches, played with a time control of 25 minutes plus 10-second increment. The semifinals will be played as four-game matches.

Sunday, February 15: The final, played over four games, and the placement matches use the same 25 minutes plus 10-second increment. In the final, the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion is determined.

Source: Freestyle Chess

The FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship will be a continuation of FIDE’s previous events in the Fischer Random format (previously held in 2019 and 2022) and will feature eight players. Six players have qualified based on their results during the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour: Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana, Vincent Keymer, Arjun Erigaisi, and Javokhir Sindarov.

Two additional participants will be selected separately, one by FIDE and one by Freestyle Chess. Freestyle Chess has already nominated Hans Niemann, due to his outstanding performance in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Las Vegas. Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the qualifier to claim the 8th spot.

The total prize fund is $300,000, with $100,000 awarded to the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion.

Source: Freestyle Chess