"SET Freestyle Cup" on March 6-7 will gather fans of the most unpredictable chess games
Not only its format, but also the composition of the participants increases interest in the tournament. Grandmasters Viktor Bologan (2.484 points in FIDE rating), Ivan Skitsko (2.421), Yegor Lashkin (2.381), Vladimir Khamitsevich (2.379), Vasile Sanduliak (2.299), International Masters Julian Baltag (2.323), Ruslan Soltanich (2.254), FIDE Masters Semyon Shapochnik (2.263), Alexander Baranchuk (2.220) and Dmitry Gubin (2.122).
The competition is organized by the Moldovan Chess Federation with the support of the SET real estate agency, which gave the tournament its name – “SET Freestyle Cup”. It will be held at 13/3, Tighina str.
Celebration of pure intellect
Mikhail Alexandrov, vice-president of the Chess Federation and director of the SET real estate agency, told in a comment for Logos Press that “SET Freestyle Cup” is not just a tournament, but a celebration of pure intellect and creative freedom. “We bring together the best minds who compete in Fischer chess. In this format, traditional theory gives way to strategy and genuine intuition,” he emphasized.
Fischer Chess, also called Chess 960, was invented by the 11th world champion Robert James Fischer after a rematch with Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky in 1992. Four years later, he presented an updated version of the classical rules.
The main difference between Fischer’s chess and classical chess is that the pieces are placed randomly on the first and eighth lines, but with a number of rules: the king is always between the rooks to preserve the possibility of castling, each player’s bishops are on different-colored squares, the placement of black pieces mirrors that of white pieces, and pawns remain in standard positions.
There are a total of 960 allowable starting positions, which gave the format its second name. This leads to unpredictability of chess players’ actions in the openings of games.
Fischer stated that the essence of this format “is not to destroy chess, but to preserve its essence, and so become honest”.
In 2001 the first World Championship in the renewed format took place. The winner was Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko. World championships are regularly held, from 2019 under the auspices of the International Chess Federation (FIDE).
Interest in Fischer’s chess rapidly increased after the German philanthropist Jan Henrik Büttner organized a tournament in 2024, for which the definition “Freestyle Chess” with a prize fund of $200 thousand was applied. He offered the world’s strongest player Magnus Carlsen to come up with a tournament format in which he himself would like to play. As a result, the 16th world champion chose Fischer chess and a draw in the form of a round-robin Rapid tournament with further elimination matches with standard time control.
The organizers of the “SET Freestyle Cup” will welcome chess lovers who wish to join the tournament, enjoy the atmosphere of high-level competition and see the beauty of chess in its most unpredictable form.
Logos Press editorial office is the information partner of the tournament.
