Chess trump cards: ‘Claim you own this stuff,’ Dutch GM Anish Giri taunts FIDE

Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri made fun of FIDE by urging them to take credit for chess trump cards created by British GM David Howell in connection with the recent Freestyle Chess Grand Slam event in Paris.

Giri was impressed by the concept first revealed by TakeTakeTake, a chess app co-founded by World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen. In a series of posts on social media platform X, Giri, said it might be good business to set up some kind of game with such cards.

"FIDE, you guys have to claim you own this stuff before someone makes it," Giri added by tagging the World Chess body. Though Giri's posts appear to be banter, they allegedly revisit a recent controversy between Freestyle Chess and FIDE.

In January, ahead of the opening leg of the Freestyle Chess event at Weissenhaus in Germany, FIDE demanded the organisers to remove the title of 'World Championship'.

FIDE threatened legal action against the chess project co-founded by German businessman Jan Henric Buettner and Carlsen. The FIDE higher-ups had not been on good terms with Carlsen since the World Rapid & Blitz Championship in December, and the row connected to the Freestyle Chess event further strained the relationship.

Meanwhile, two of the four Indians, including World Champion D Gukesh, who competed in the Paris leg, were given the lowest ratings in the cards. Vidit Gujrathi and Gukesh got an overall rating of 82, while Carlsen topped the list with a rating of 95.

Among the Indians, Arjun Erigaisi had the best rating of 90, while R Praggnanandhaa was given an overall rating of 85. GM Howell said he chose the ratings based on the players’ performances across all formats last year.