Niemann Wins Diving Chess Championship In Lead-Up To Freestyle Chess Finals

The Finals of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025, taking place near Cape Town, South Africa, are just around the corner. The year-long tour brings together eight world-class players to compete in a Chess960 tournament that starts at the Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, South Africa, on Monday, December 8. 

Thursday, December 4, featured several side events and a press conference held by Jan Henric Buettner and GM Magnus Carlsen in Cape Town.

Finals Participants

Players, already in South Africa, participated in a number of side events on Thursday. GM Hans Niemann won the Final against GM Fabiano Caruana in Chess960 dive chess, played in the rooftop pool of the Silo Hotel. GM Javokhir Sindarov, fresh from winning the 2025 FIDE World Cup, finished third after beating GM Vidit Gujrathi.

Also on Thursday, four players visited the University of Western Cape to meet about 200 fans and play in two simuls on over 40 boards. Participants included streamers WFM Anna Cramling, WGM Dina Belenkaya, and Niklas Steenfatt.

GM Vincent Keymer and commentator GM Peter Leko alternated moves and went undefeated, winning 18 games and drawing two. But GMs Carlsen and Levon Aronian didn't fare as well, winning 15 games, drawing one, and losing four. In all 20 games, Aronian started with a different opening move.

GM Parham Maghsoodloo played against fans for 2.5 hours with 30 seconds against five minutes for his opponents (plus a one-second increment for both sides), and he won all of his games. 

Thursday also featured an opening press conference, where Carlsen and Buettner spoke about the tour and their goals. "We want to conquer the continents. This is the fourth continent where we're holding a tournament," said Buettner, recalling that this marks the seventh tournament since the series began in 2024. 

We want to conquer the continents.

—Jan Henric Buettner

He added, "I think it’s specifically great to be in Africa. I know that the African population, at least the people who follow chess, are extremely happy to have such a tournament here, with Magnus and all the other great players."

As for the remaining continents, Buettner is working on it. "So the only ones missing are Australia and South America, obviously. We are in talks there. We actually have an invitation from Melbourne."

It isn't Carlsen's first time in South Africa, but he hasn't been in the country since a family vacation in 1999, visiting his aunt and her family who lived there. He said, "I’ve always wanted to come back, but it hasn’t panned out. So I’m very happy to finally be back in this beautiful country. People keep telling me the city has changed, and what can I say—it’s still beautiful." 

People keep telling me the city has changed, and what can I say—it’s still beautiful.

—Magnus Carlsen

Carlsen praised Buettner for putting together the Freestyle events: "I’m very grateful to Jan and his team for believing in Freestyle and making it all come to life. I truly believe that when it comes to longer chess, this is as good as it gets—it’s just creativity and fight from the get-go." As for dive chess, it wasn't for him: "In terms of underwater chess, I’m a little uncertain. Essentially my brain is all that I have, and anything that I perceive to be dangerous then it is a little bit difficult for me."

I truly believe that when it comes to longer chess, this is as good as it gets.

—Magnus Carlsen

Buettner likened his events to Formula 1 and spoke at length about marketing chess to the masses. He said: "We of course want to be a mass market sport and we want to have all people interested in it. So this is why, for example, after Paris we had a documentary that ran on ESPN. There's a documentary actually out now which we also produced on our Las Vegas show... It's really watchable. And we're going to do a similar one for South Africa too. So it's going to be like an episode or two on that."

They've also shortened the time control from the regular 90+30 classical time control to rapid, 10+2 and 30+15. In addition, the Freestyle events were shortened from eight days to now four days for a tournament. Buettner explained that these decisions have all been taken to market chess to a wider audience.

About the financial stability of the series, Buettner was honest, saying sponsorships have been coming, “not as fast as I hoped in the beginning.” He is in talks with potential partners and cities who will host future events, however, and said, "There are some other players coming on board and the venture capital industry, usually they understand that they are funding not a profitable business, but in some cases even a non-revenue business. I mean, look at even the biggest, if I look at ChatGPT OpenAI they're losing a billion a month, right, so we are not there, but we are definitely not on a profitable path right now, but our goal is next year to become event-level profitable."

They've been "lucky" in other ways, however, as Buettner explained a few happy coincidences: “We’ve been lucky. For example, Hikaru Nakamura, one of the top eight, couldn’t attend because his wife is giving birth. We replaced him with Javokhir Sindarov, and later on, he won the World Cup! Similarly, Arjun Erigaisi, who is arriving today, just won the Jerusalem Masters. We’ve been lucky in our selections and with the qualification events.”

Previous coverage:

• Can Anyone Stop Carlsen From Winning The Freestyle Grand Slam Tour?