7 Humorous Predictions For Chess In 2025

As the chess world celebrates the arrival of a new year, what will be the major events that will capture our attention in 2025? So that you can be prepared for all that will happen, here is what you can anticipate. Be ready for them:

• FIDE Will Organize Only Events Online
• FIDE Will Ban Footwear
• Hans Nieman Will Confess To Cheating (Again)
• Levy Rozman Will Become A Grandmaster
• Magnus Carlsen’s Daughter Will Win Bullet Brawl
• Position 961 Will Be Found For Freestyle Chess
• Lichess Will Buy Chess.com

FIDE Will Organize Only Events Online 

FIDE will declare that over-the-board classical chess is obsolete and will begin sponsoring only events online. When asked about this change of direction by the International Chess Federation, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich confirmed that it’s true and something that FIDE has been considering for more than a decade. He said: “I hate over-the-board chess. Online is the only true format.

FIDE Will Ban Footwear

On the same day that FIDE declares OTB chess to be obsolete, it will stay in the news with another event. Not content with banning jeans, it will expand its dress code to prohibit all footwear, including socks. Although players can arrive at a tournament event with footwear, they have to take it off when they go through the required security screening—and leave it off until they leave the playing area. When they play, they will be barefoot. Of course, the new policy will also apply to online games.

The change in dress code creates an additional measure to keep players from cheating. FIDE explains: “No longer with players be able to hide notes in their socks or electronic devices, including phones, in their shoes.” All players except GM Hans Niemann will endorse the new policy.

Hans Niemann Will Confess To Cheating (Again)

On the same day that FIDE makes its announcements, Niemann will come clean about his cheating in chess games. Was it really news when we learned in 2022 that he had cheated in “multiple games”? His confession in 2025 will be even bigger news: He will confess that he cheated in every game that he played in 2024, and he will offer to return all the prize money that he received. When he makes his true confessions public, he will announce, “I don’t know why I did it. Cheating made me lose only that much faster.”

Magnus Carlsen’s Daughter Will Win Bullet Brawl

You’re probably wondering, What daughter, right? As events in 2025 unfold, you will soon learn that GM Magnus Carlsen and his bride, the former Ella Victoria Malone, made a honeymoon baby. Their daughter will be born on October 4, exactly nine months after the wedding. Her first word will be, “Checkmate.” On the last Saturday in December, she will grab Carlsen’s phone when he begins to play online in a Bullet Brawl—and he lets her keep it. She goes on to win every game. Because no one had yet created a Chess.com account for her in her name, Carlsen claims all the wins as his.

Levy Rozman Will Become A Grandmaster

IM Levy Rozman, better known as GothamChess, will finally become a grandmaster. He will secure the requirements—three GM norms and a rating of 2500 Elo—before April 1, 2025 so no one will even think about his success being an April Fool’s Day trick. His success shocks Chess.com’s Danny Rensch, who begrudgingly admits, “I feel like I’ve lost a brother. It was so much fun hanging out as IMs together.” Meanwhile, Rozman will consider rejecting the GM title so that he can continue to play in his favorite event, I'M Not A GM Speed Chess Championship.

I feel like I've lost a brother.
—Danny Rensch

Position 961 Will Be Found For Freestyle Chess

Freestyle chess, or Chess960, will continue to attract the attention of the chess world and math scholars, so much so that a technical misunderstanding about this format will be identified by none other than the brilliant seven-year-old daughter of two math professors at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, a prestigious university in India. She (name withheld because of her young age) will prove in a math colloquium that the number of possible positions in how the game can start is 961, not 960 as long believed since the variant, also known as Fischer Random Chess, was first promoted by legendary grandmaster and former world champion Bobby Fischer.

Unfortunately, for chess purists, Chess.com will not add this new position to its variant because its software can accommodate just 750 positions. This limitation only came to light when software engineers tried to modify the program and realized the shortcoming. CEO Erik Allebest explained, “We really don’t need all those positions anyway as long as the pawns are all in the right places.”

The pawns are all in the right places.
—Erik Allebest

Lichess Will Buy Chess.com

The final prediction is a real shocker: Lichess will buy Chess.com. At the media event when this announcement is made, the answers that Lichess officials to questions they are asked are equally shocking. First, will Lichess stay a non-profit? “Hell no, where is the incentive?” they will answer. Next, what motivated you to buy Chess.com? “That’s obvious,” they will respond. “Our content is so lousy, and we can’t create anything as good as Chess.com. We are lucky that they were for sale.”

What do you think? Do any of these predictions shock you?