Co-founder of the Freestyle Chess Jan Henric Buettner spoke about how Hikaru Nakamura declined to participate in the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2026. Buettner notes that Nakamura was the only player who qualified for the tournament and received a personal invitation, explaining that Hikaru wanted to quit at his peak.

Jan Henric Buettner

Jan Henric Buettner

Co-founder of the Freestyle Chess

“The only person who actually qualified for the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship was Hikaru. He was invited.

I had a specific conversation with him, and he said outright that he doesn’t want his ‘market value’ to decrease because he might not win this tournament against the strong field. Therefore, he would prefer to be remembered as the World Fischer Random Chess Champion in 2022.

So perhaps it’s better to just retire. Because Hikaru’s in a situation where he doesn’t play in high-stakes tournaments very often. He plays these, as he calls them, ‘Mickey Mouse tournaments’ to boost his rating and so on.

I’m very interested to see how he does in the Candidates Tournament in Cyprus against all these strong players.

Hikaru is a very unique case, I would say.”

American GM Hikaru Nakamura (2810) was the Chess 960 World Champion from 2022 to 2026. Hikaru won the 2022 Fischer Random World Championship by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final with a score of 3-2 and securing a prize of $150,000. Hikaru commented on his refusal to participate in the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship in January.

Credit: Lennart Ootes / Freestyle Chess