FIDE has decided that Fischer Random Chess, or Chess960, will get its own official rating. The FIDE General Assembly, held in Samarkand on September 26-27 during the 46th Chess Olympiad, approved establishing the system on the condition that it is elaborated and implemented no later than June 1, 2027. It is the latest step in a year that has brought Freestyle Chess and FIDE from rivalry to partnership.
From rivals to partners
Through 2025, Freestyle Chess ran its own Grand Slam Tour, outside FIDE's calendar, and in mid-2025 it published its own Freestyle rating list, topped by Magnus Carlsen at 2909. Relations with FIDE were strained. After more than a year of confrontation, the two sides agreed to cooperate in January 2026.
On January 7, 2026, FIDE and Freestyle Chess announced they would stage the first official FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in Weissenhaus, Germany. FIDE continued its Fischer Random World championships. Earlier ones were held in 2019 and 2022.
Two joint championships
The first edition was played from February 13 to 15, 2026. Magnus Carlsen beat Fabiano Caruana 2.5-1.5 in the final, winning from a dead-lost position in game three and drawing the fourth game. Nodirbek Abdusattorov took third place. Both finalists and Abdusattorov qualified for 2027.
On February 19, FIDE and Freestyle Chess confirmed that the championship would return to Weissenhaus in 2027, now with a Women's event from February 5 to 7 and the Open from February 12 to 14. Each field has eight places and five are filled.
In the Open, Carlsen, Caruana and Abdusattorov qualified in 2026. Vincent Keymer won the Grenke Freestyle Chess Open 2026 in Karlsruhe. India's Pranav Venkatesh topped Part 1 of the Freestyle Friday Championship with 60 points.
In the Women's field, Bibisara Assaubayeva, Harika Dronavalli, Alua Nurman, Dinara Wagner and Anna Muzychuk have qualified. Assaubayeva won the 2026 exhibition match in Weissenhaus, Harika, Nurman and Wagner qualified at the Grenke Open in Karlsruhe, and Muzychuk topped the Women's standings in Freestyle Friday Part 1 with 88 points.
The last three places in each field go to the winners of the Freestyle Friday Championship knockout (December 11 and 18), Online Qualifier I (November 29 to December 3) and Online Qualifier II (January 3 to 7, 2027).
What FIDE decided
According to FIDE's summary of the Assembly's main decisions, published on October 1, the move responds to "the continued growth of the variant and the need for an official competitive rating framework". The proposal came jointly from the German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Irish and Faroe Islands federations, who argued that the absence of an official rating has limited the variant's integration into the wider competitive chess ecosystem.
A fourth FIDE rating?
FIDE currently publishes three rating lists: standard (classical), rapid and blitz. The Chess960 rating would be a separate system alongside them. The federations' motion, dated June 25, 2026, asked for the new rating to be open for rapid and classical time controls at first, with separate ratings for different time controls possible once the system is established. It proposed using current FIDE ratings as the base, as was done when FIDE introduced its rapid and blitz ratings. FIDE's summary does not spell out these terms, so the final design remains to be confirmed.
What is still open
FIDE has not said how the ratings will be calculated or which events will count, including whether Freestyle Friday and the 2027 qualifiers will be included. The full decisions and documentation are to be published at a later date.
