The second volume in the Yearbook series is devoted in detail to the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, featuring its five high-calibre, prestigious tournaments in Weissenhaus, Paris, Karlsruhe, Las Vegas and Grootbos/Cape Town, as well as the subsequent FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in February 2026.
Featuring over 150 annotated games, 50 chess problems, key documents, numerous photographs and tables, the Chess 960 Yearbook 2026 is a modern tournament book that captures a unique highlight in recent chess history and is a must-have for any chess library.
The Russian grandmaster, coach and experienced chess journalist Andrey Deviatkin has made a significant contribution to the success of the publication. In addition to his game analyses and commentaries, he offers rare insights into Chess 960 tournaments held in present-day Russia.
Essays on various other topics, such as ‘Non-Human Chess 960 Openings’ (Santago Beltrán) and ‘Stockfish and Practical Play – Two Different Worlds in Chess 960’ (Arno Nickel), as well as extracts from an interview by Thorsten Cmiel with Peter Heine Nielsen, ‘Playing Chess: Human against Human Again’, round off this volume, which is even more comprehensive and informative than its predecessor.
Contents
6 Preface
8 The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025
8 Weissenhaus
12 Paris
18 Karlsruhe
22 Las Vegas
40 Grootbos / Cape Town
50 Overview
54 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026
65 Quo vadis, Freestyle Chess? (A. Nickel)
‘70 Playing Chess Human against Human again’ (T. Cmiel / P. H. Nielsen)
74 Classical Chess 960 − To be or not to be? (A. Deviatkin)
86 Selected Games (A. Deviatkin)
100 Non human Chess 960 Openings (S. Beltrán)
116 Stockfish and practical Play – two different Worlds in Chess 960 (A. Nickel)
151 Selected Puzzles (A. Deviatkin)
162 Games Section
260 Regulation for the Qualification to the
FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2027
262 Regulations for the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship
Weissenhaus, Germany February 11th-16th, 2026
267 The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour Official Rules and Regulations
List of Games
272 List of Games by Game Number
275 List of Games by Starting Position
279 List of Games by White
283 List of Games by Black
About the Yearbook Project
The Chess 960 Yearbook (launched in 2025) aims to:
- Provide comprehensive information, analyses, and research findings regarding Chess960 (also known as Fischer Random Chess, Chess9LX, or Freestyle Chess) from its inception in 1996 to the present day,
- Present in-depth analyses of Chess960 games from around the world in the style of *Chess Informant*, including commentary by Grandmasters (with a particular focus on the Freestyle Grand Slam and the FIDE Freestyle World Championship),
- Discuss the issues surrounding unbalanced starting positions,
- Examine the structural characteristics of Chess960 starting positions,
- Document facts regarding tournaments, matches, and their background details.
Excerpt
