$12 Million Raised For 'Revolutionary' Freestyle Series Of Tournaments

$12 million in funding has been secured to organize a series of "Freestyle" chess tournaments similar to the first event held in February of this year in Weissenhaus, Germany. Initiators GM Magnus Carlsen and Jan Henric Buettner joined forces with Harley Miller, CEO and Managing Partner of Left Lane Capital, and announced the series today.

A new venture called Freestyle Chess, which raised $12 million from Left Lane Capital, plans to organize six to eight so-called Freestyle Chess Grand Slam tournaments per year across all continents. The intended prize fund for each of the first three events is a hefty $750,000 and $1 million for every tournament thereafter.

Carlsen has committed to playing in the events and will be involved in choosing his nine opponents from a group of players named the "Freestyle Chess Players Club," currently consisting of 25 players with an Elo rating above 2725.

All tournaments will feature Freestyle chess, a new name for what is known in the chess world as Chess960 or Fischer Random. In this variant, the pieces are placed semi-randomly on the first and last ranks behind the pawns.

The ambitious goal of the Freestyle organizers is "to revolutionize the world of chess" by creating events for the mass market, holding them in luxury venues, and using highly professional production and media teams.

"Chess needs to evolve into a more dynamic and captivating spectacle, one that allows players to showcase their skills from the first move," Carlsen was quoted in the press release. "Modern chess variants like Fischer Random will define the future of chess, which needs to evolve to more thrilling gameplay."

Modern chess variants like Fischer Random will define the future of chess, which needs to evolve to more thrilling gameplay.
—Magnus Carlsen

Left Lane Capital's CEO and Managing Partner Harley Miller said: "Any time you have the best athletes in the world competing at the absolute highest standard of play, coupled with more avant-garde storytelling and showmanship, you inherently will build something of great consequence. Freestyle Chess has the potential to become a mainstream sporting spectacle, akin to Formula 1, or ATP Tennis."

In 2023, Left Lane Capital's assets under management had a total market value of over $2.6 billion. Its portfolio included League One Volleyball (LOVB), the largest youth volleyball business in the United States, and Kings League, a seven-a-side next-generation football competition led by Gerard Piqué.

According to ChessTech, the investors met with Buettner and Carlsen on Monday and Tuesday in Nashville, after which the deal was closed on Wednesday in New York. The site also noted that Buettner, who invested personal money in the first edition in February, wants to "win more players as board members" and "has reserved 20 percent of the company shares for this purpose."

The news that Buettner and Carlsen found a new investor for their plans to expand Freestyle Chess further is exciting and, to some extent, a relief. As early as March 2024, the two announced plans for a Freestyle Grand Slam for 2024-2025 in India, New York, Cartagena/Colombia, and Cape Town/South Africa, as well as for Australia in 2026. A month later, the event in India was canceled. Buettner commented to the Hindustan Times:

"The only ones interested [in India] were those who wanted me to invest a couple of hundred thousand into their hotel. It’s good as part of the plan. But if it's only that, then I'd rather host the next event again, in my resort [Weisenhaus, Germany]."

Buettner himself is a German entrepreneur who founded and led AOL Europe in the mid-1990s and started Headline VC, where he managed over a billion euros in startup investments, including GoTo Meeting, Groupon, and Sonos. He owns the Weissenhaus resort and plans to organize a second Freestyle tournament there in early 2025. Details about subsequent tournaments or future host cities were not announced yet, this time.

Good things to come!https://t.co/AUBn2XyGpj

— Magnus Carlsen (@MagnusCarlsen) July 25, 2024