Jan Henric Buettner

CEO of Freestyle Chess

“People who are spending their lives just with chess — see everything through the prism of the chessboard and the chess market. And they’re a little blind to the bigger picture.

Many in the chess market perceive classical chess players as an endangered species. A species that must be protected and that everything must be done to preserve it.

In the chess market, we have a situation similar to what tennis had in 1970. Elite GMs play constantly, but no one is interested in watching. I mean no one except the chess players themselves — a very narrow chess market, people who understand chess.

But just imagine that in 30 years, freestyle chess will be so successful that it will attract the masses, just like Formula 1 racing attracts a multitude of interested spectators. And then a new generation will emerge, only just entering their teens. And they will only know chess as freestyle chess.

And then you’ll say, “You know what? 20 years ago, we only took one of these 960 positions. We played only one of these positions and analyzed it down to the smallest detail, so much so that we even gave names to the various openings, like the Italian Opening, the Ruy Lopez, the Sicilian Defense, and so on.” How ridiculous does that sound from this perspective?

In Freestyle Chess, we don’t look with a traditional chess eye. We look with a spectator’s eye. What could possibly interest them? That, in fact, was the original idea behind our business idea.”