The new year has already seen multiple Chess events come and go, but as they say, the show never ends. The circus is now moving to France, where fans will get to witness 12 top players battle it out over a week for a hefty prize pool.
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 - Paris is the second of five events of the multi-million dollar series of the same name. The qualifying rounds, where players could battle for that one final slot in the main event, have also ended, and fans can't wait to see some of their favourite players battle it out.
Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 - Paris date and venue
It is part of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, organised by Freestyle Chess Operations, which consists of five over-the-board events in the Freestyle Chess (Chess960) variant. Players will score points based on placement in each event, and the participant with the highest score at the end of the year will become the Freestyle Chess Champion.
Interestingly, each Grand Slam tournament follows the rapid format in the Group Stage and the classical format during the Knockout Stage.
The second event in this 2025 series will be held at the Pavillon Chesnaie du Roy in Paris for seven days, starting on April 8 and ending on April 15. The Play-Ins stage — open qualifiers for non-titled players — was conducted from March 9 to 15, with the winner advancing to the Grand Slam phase.
Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 - Paris prize money and participants
This Chess event has a prize pool of $680,000, with $70,000 set aside for the Freestyle Chess Players Club members. There are currently 26 top players hand-picked and invited to be part of this club, including legends like Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Viswanathan Anand, as well as up-and-coming talents such as Alireza Firouzja and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.
Each subsequent event will feature the top three of the previous Grand Slam, the top three by classical rating, two organiser wildcards, the winner of a major classical tournament, and the winner of Chess.com's Play-Ins. The list of participants in Paris is:
- Magnus Carlsen
- Fabiano Caruana
- Hikaru Nakamura
- Arjun Erigaisi
- Gukesh Dommaraju
- Alireza Firouzja
- Vincent Keymer
- Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu
- Hans Niemann
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
- Ian Nepomniachtchi
- Vidit Gujrathi
Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 - Paris livestreams
This prestigious event will be broadcast live on these official channels:
- Freestyle Chess on YouTube
- Freestyle Chess on Twitch
- Chess.Com on YouTube
- Chess.com on Twitch
- ChessBase India on YouTube
- chess24 on YouTube
- chess24 on Twitch
Moreover, a lot of popular Chess content creators will be co-casting the action, which was also the case in the series' first competition in Weissenhaus, Germany. The list of renowned names includes GM Sergey "Crestbook" Shipov, Anna Cramling, Kévin "BlitzStream" Bordi and Levy "gothamchess" Rozman. Moreover, a lot of the participants will be streaming the action live, including matches of their competitors.
It's another long season for Chess fans around the world, with new events and higher prize pools ensuring that audience interest has remained stable. The uncertain futures of star players like Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura in the classical format have added to the hype, and it remains to be seen for how long fans get to see them in events like the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 - Paris.
