The Samarkand Gambit: FIDE, Carlsen, and the Move That Cannot Be Taken Back

I thought I was exiled from football, but it turned out football led me deep into myself. And chess — seen through the eyes of an outsider, living in Da Nang, born in India — entered me in a similarly slow way.

On a September afternoon, I sat in front of a screen, replaying old footage from 2026, the night Mbappe ran across Russian grass and I said on air that he was running on the memory of an aging generation. Six years later, I heard that rhythm of running again, but this time there was no grass, no stands. It was in a conference hallway in Samarkand, where on September 26, FIDE member federations will vote for president.

Three names sit on the ballot: Wadim Rosenstein — German businessman and chess organizer; Jan Henric Buettner — German businessman; and Timur Turlov — Kazakh businessman. None comes from the traditional ranks of professional chess administration. All come from capital.

And at the center of every campaign narrative is a name that is not running: Magnus Carlsen.

What made me pause was not the ballot. What made me pause was a promise: to bring Carlsen back to the classical World Championship cycle. Anyone who has followed chess long enough knows that in this sport, a promise is the cheapest thing on the board. A move is the expensive one.

Context: When the arbiter loses the chair to sanctions

The story begins with an unexpected event. Arkady Dvorkovich — the head of FIDE — stepped down after being listed under European Union sanctions. In modern chess history, rarely has an FIDE president had to leave office under external geopolitical pressure. Dvorkovich's exit was not a voluntary strategic decision. It was an external shock, and how it happened matters more than the fact that it happened.

The chair was left empty, and three businessmen rushed into the race.

What stands out is that none of these three comes from the ranks of diligent sports administrators rising through national federations. They come from entirely different fields: technology, investment, logistics, energy, finance. To them, chess is not merely a sport to be administered — it is a market that has not yet been properly tapped.

Before looking at each candidate, I want to pause here. Over forty years observing the industry, I have seen many power transfers in sports federations. Each time, when outside capital flows into a traditionally closed governing body, the standing question is: are they here to build, or to seize? With chess, this question is especially painful, because the sport has never had as much money as football or tennis, yet it has global reach and a massive playing population.

FIDE is present in more than 190 national federations. But the paradox lies here: global recognition is high, while actual sponsorship is thin enough that candidate Rosenstein himself had to exclaim that there are only "a few sponsors" inside chess. A sport that hundreds of millions of people know the rules of, yet only a handful of major brands will sign with. That is not a problem for a single presidential term. It is a structural problem that has existed for decades.

And in that context, on September 26 in Samarkand, the ballot will answer a question bigger than the election itself: which path does chess want to take?

Core analysis: Three tension axes shaping chess's future

This election looks on the surface like a personnel race. But if you peel back that skin, I see three tension axes simultaneously tightening around the sport.

Axis one: classical format and the fragmentation of alternative formats.

This is the axis I consider most important, and also the one most ignored by mainstream media. For decades, the classical World Championship was the absolute summit of chess. Long time controls, deep opening preparation, refined endgame technique — that was the "technical moat" anyone seeking to become champion had to cross.

But then freestyle — or Chess960, the variant with randomized starting positions — appeared and broke that very moat. When the initial piece placement changes every game, the value of memorizing thousands of opening variations collapses. Skill shifts toward pure calculation and on-the-spot adaptability. For players who have invested years in opening databases, this is an unpleasant revaluation of skill.

Then came rapid, blitz, and online chess. These formats have higher variance, are more attractive to television audiences, and are especially suited to streaming platforms. Revenue from streaming, audience interaction, short tournaments watchable in a single evening — all of this is tilting the scales.

The asymmetry lies here: new formats are gaining attention, while the classical format retains symbolic weight but is losing commercial pull. FIDE, as the governing body, faces a difficult choice: protect the purity of the classical format, or rationalize the rise of new formats?

Axis two: the Russia issue and the precedent from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Last June, FIDE temporarily suspended the Russian Chess Federation for failing to comply, within the prescribed deadline, with a CAS ruling concerning the federation's incorporation of chess organizations from occupied Ukrainian territories.

This is a geopolitical file framed in legal language. Rosenstein, in his campaign statement, committed that he would "follow the CAS decision — there is no way around it." I read that sentence many times. Legally, this is the position with the lowest political risk, because it leaves no room for arbitrary interpretation. But in practice, it means any future FIDE president will be bound by rulings coming from outside the sport, regardless of personal wishes.

This is the point I think many election-watchers are underestimating. The question is not who is pro-Russia or not. The question is: how will an international sports federation handle it when its own legal rulings are shaped by geopolitical forces beyond its control?

I have witnessed similar disputes in other sports — athletics, swimming, weightlifting. Wherever sports sanctions intersect with international politics, there is always a crack that never fully heals. FIDE will have to live with that crack at least through the next cycle.

Axis three: conflict of interest at the candidate level.

This is the axis closest to me, and also the hardest to talk about. Rosenstein has faced campaign questions over his business links to Russia. WR Group — his company — previously had logistics, certification, and oil-and-gas projects in Russia. He says those projects were divested after the 2026 sanctions.

Alongside that, he is the founder and chairman of WR Chess — an organizer of elite chess tournaments. And in his campaign platform, he proposes a rule: FIDE employees may not simultaneously work for private chess organizations.

I read that proposal and asked myself: does this rule apply to the person proposing it? This is not an attacking question. It is the question anyone who has ever written about sports governance must ask. A 27-year-old former editor once spiked my article and said I "wrote literature inside a sports report." He was right about one thing: I always wrote as if people mattered more than numbers. But in this story, numbers matter — not statistical numbers, but the numbers of potentially overlapping interests.

The key point across all three axes: governing authority is being challenged simultaneously by the market, by geopolitics, and by the candidate's own internal positioning.

This is a situation I have not seen in chess in forty years of following it. These three pressures resonate at a single moment: the vote on September 26.

The Carlsen story: A hostage of a cycle that no longer belongs to him

Now I want to speak about the name that put this election on the front pages: Magnus Carlsen.

Carlsen was a five-time World Champion. He is the world number one with a rating of approximately 2830 — his published peak reached 2882 in 2026. In 2026, he announced he would not defend his title in the 2026 event. Since then, the classical championship cycle has proceeded without the player considered the strongest.

That is the central paradox of modern chess. The strongest player and the titleholder are no longer the same person.

I have followed Carlsen long enough to know one thing: he did not leave chess. He only left a specific format. He plays rapid, blitz, freestyle, and online events. He still wins. He still draws. He is still a viewing machine.

But when a candidate for FIDE president promises to "bring Carlsen back," I ask: bring him back how?

FIDE cannot force a player to enter the qualifying cycle. FIDE cannot compel someone to sign a contract. FIDE cannot summon someone who has chosen another path. What FIDE can do is adjust qualification pathways, grant wild cards, or create commercial incentives attractive enough that someone wants to return.

The promise, therefore, is not self-executing. It depends on a third party — Carlsen — whom no one can control. That is the structural weakness of a campaign built on a name rather than a mechanism.

I remember the night in Russia in 2026, when I blurted out on air that Mbappe was running on the memory of an aging generation. That night I understood one thing: the young run on the memory of the old, while the old cling to their own memory. In chess, Carlsen is the one who ran past the memory of an entire generation of players. And now, an entire generation of administrators is clinging to that name to mythologize themselves.

Meanwhile, Hikaru Nakamura — the world number two, with a rating of approximately 2790 to 2800, peaking at 2816 in 2026 — is a different story. Nakamura is not just a top player. He is a streaming phenomenon, a leader of the chess community on digital platforms, a personal brand with an appeal to young audiences that no federation president can match. But in the campaign narrative, Nakamura appears mainly as a reference — a name evoking connection, rather than a figure with a clearly defined strategic role.

This is where I want to pause a bit longer. In forty years of observing sports, I have noticed a pattern: when a sport lets its commercial value depend on a few individuals, that sport is living on a loan against the future. One day, the loan comes due. The question then is not how to keep the borrower, but how to open more sources of capital.

Chess is currently living on Carlsen. Whenever the championship cycle is discussed, people do not ask who holds the title. They ask when Carlsen will return. That is not a sign of a healthy sport. It is a sign of a sport missing an ex-lover.

Counter-intuitive angle: A promise means admitting dependency

This is what I want to say clearly, even though it runs against the general feeling of most observers.

When a presidential candidate promises to bring Carlsen back, that person is not advertising FIDE's strength. That person is admitting FIDE's weakness.

Read it again. If FIDE were strong enough, the strongest players would naturally enter the qualifying cycle because of the value of the title. If FIDE were strong enough, no one would need to promise to bring anyone back. They would just organize the event and the world would come.

But FIDE is having to promise. And that says that the championship title is losing its sacredness in a way no press release will acknowledge.

One candidate says he has "the best relations with Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura." This is not data. This is a campaign statement, and I record it in its proper place — as a media move, not as evidence of governing competence.

More notable is this: neither Carlsen nor Nakamura has confirmed any commitment. The press reports a candidate's promise, not an agreement between players and federation. There is a gap between those two things, and that gap is as wide as an entire championship cycle.

And this is the move I think will determine the credibility of any future president: if, after the vote, Carlsen does not return, the gap between promise and reality will become a crack that cannot be hidden. People will not blame Carlsen. They will blame the one who promised.

I have witnessed this many times in other sports. An official promises to bring back a star, a major tournament, a golden sponsor. When the promise fails, no one remembers the star. Only the promiser is remembered.

The commercial game: What are people coming to FIDE to do?

Looking at the three candidates, I see a trend clearer than any individual: capital is replacing expertise.

Buettner is a businessman. Turlov is a businessman. Rosenstein is a businessman. None speaks the language of a federation general secretary. They speak the language of investors: market, product, growth, sponsorship, rights.

This is not necessarily bad. In many sports, administrators from the corporate world have taken a sport from amateur activity to a global entertainment industry. But there are also reverse cases, where attention to short-term profit weakens the foundational values of the sport.

With chess, the question becomes especially painful because the sport was shaped by intellectual individuals, not by commercial organizations. Placing a businessman at the pinnacle of chess power means accepting a philosophical shift: from chess as cultural heritage to chess as a product to be sold.

I do not argue that a businessman cannot govern a sports federation well. I argue that the question to ask is not the candidate's background, but whom the candidate will protect when the sport's interests and personal interests conflict. That is the question every conflict-of-interest proposal must answer, even when the proposer is himself in the conflict zone.

There is a beautiful and uncomfortable paradox here: the proposal that "FIDE employees may not work for private chess organizations" is a strong anti-conflict measure in theory. But its author is the founder and chairman of a private chess organization. If the rule is adopted, will it apply to the future president himself? The text does not answer. And that non-answer matters more than the text.

I remember once commentating on an SHB Da Nang vs Hanoi FC match at Hoa Xuan stadium with 20,000 empty seats. The score was 0-0, but after the match I could not recall a single play. I only remembered the sound of a defender's boots touching the ball, a coach shouting into the empty stands. I wrote an 800-word piece titled "Football without fans is a poem missing its rhythm" and cried when I finished typing.

This governance game, to me, has the same missing rhythm. There are many words, many statements, many forums. But there is a silence in the middle — the silence of what is not being said: what mechanism actually brings Carlsen back, and who will oversee the overseer of the game.

The classical cycle: When the throne is dethroned by the market

I want to return to the format axis a bit more, because it is reported as a side topic when it is in fact the main one.

The classical World Championship has a feature no other format has: it is long. Over ten days of play, each game lasting hours, deep openings, intricate endgames. It is an almost monastic experience for players. And it creates a kind of memory that faster formats cannot.

But precisely because of this, the classical cycle has become hard to sell to mainstream media. No one watches a classical game with the feeling of watching a football match in extra time. People watch it like a play — requiring patience, attention, and a storyteller skilled enough to carry viewers through the silences.

Alternative formats are the opposite. They explode, are short, have continuous highlights, and are easy to share on social media. Freestyle breaks the opening shield and creates unexpected situations. Rapid and blitz have an element of luck, creating continuous drama. Online has platforms, streamers, and interactively engaged communities.

This fragmentation means FIDE no longer holds a monopoly on shaping elite chess as before. Private platforms can organize tournaments without FIDE's permission. Organizers like WR Chess can gather top players around tournaments they themselves define. Organizational power is flowing out of the federation and into private pockets.

In such a context, the commitment to "keep the classical championship central" is not a technical position. It is a position of prestige. FIDE leaders are not saying classical chess is stronger; they are saying it is the premier title. This is an argument about status, not competition.

I think this is the key point many miss when following the FIDE election. The question is not which format is better. The question is who has the right to define which format is central. And the answer to that question will be written into the ballot on September 26.

The pressure point: When four pressures meet at one ballot

In forty years of writing about sports, I have never seen a federation-level election concentrate so many pressures at one moment.

The first pressure comes from a forced power transfer from outside. Dvorkovich left the chair because of EU sanctions, not because of an internal race. This means the continuity of the organization was broken in a way no one wanted.

The second pressure comes from the Russia/CAS file. This is a legal file without an ending, and whoever wins will have to keep handling it. If CAS rulings are strictly complied with, the winner will face pressure from a bloc of Russia-leaning federations. If compliance is loosened, FIDE could face larger legal and geopolitical consequences.

The third pressure comes from conflict of interest at the candidate level. This is an internal and most sensitive pressure, because it does not involve an external force but the candidate himself.

The fourth pressure comes from the fragmentation of the format market. This is a structural pressure that cannot be solved by a single presidential term. It is the consequence of decades of technological development and shifting sports consumption habits.

These four pressures do not exist in isolation. They interact and amplify each other. Mishandling one weakens the ability to handle the other three. And all are decided by one ballot.

This is why I rate this election as high systemic risk. Not because any candidate is weak. But because the structure of the situation is itself tense.

Looking from Vietnam: Why this matters to us

I was born in India, work in Vietnam, and follow world chess from an outsider's angle. That gives me a strange advantage: I see things insiders overlook out of familiarity.

And what I see, looking from Vietnam, is this: the FIDE election does not only affect top players. It affects how chess operates as a global ecosystem — including for developing countries like Vietnam.

If FIDE tilts toward alternative formats, countries with strong online infrastructure benefit more. If FIDE keeps the classical format central, young players needing long development in slower formats gain opportunities. Each choice has winners and losers.

But more important than all is transparency. A sports federation governed by people with conflicts of interest will tend to make decisions that protect those conflicts. This applies not only in Zurich or Samarkand. It applies everywhere chess exists, including Da Nang — where I am sitting writing this piece.

I thought I was exiled from football, but it turned out football led me deep into myself. And chess, in its own way, is teaching me the same thing: that whenever I think I am looking at a sports match, I am actually looking at a game of power.

Progressive judgment: Three scenarios and one unanswerable question

Looking at FIDE's future after September 26, I see three possible scenarios.

The first, which can be called the pessimistic scenario. If Rosenstein wins, the combination of his historical links to business projects in Russia and his role as founder and chairman of WR Chess could create a form of governing conflict of interest that he himself proposed to prevent. In this case, the legitimacy of the new term will be challenged continuously, and the reforms this candidate has put forward will struggle to be implemented.

The second, which can be called the neutral scenario. Whoever wins, conflict-of-interest rules will be formalized, the Russia/CAS file will continue to be handled according to precedent, but tension between stakeholders will remain. This is the most likely scenario.

The third, which can be called the optimistic scenario. Pressure from this election, whatever the outcome, will create an institutional-upgrade effect: transparency on conflict of interest becomes the norm, and CAS compliance becomes a non-negotiable principle. In this scenario, the winner matters less than the organization emerging stronger from the crisis.

But between these three scenarios lies a question with no answer before the vote: if Carlsen does not return, will this election still be remembered? And if Carlsen does return, will that return actually save the legitimacy of the classical throne, or only postpone the inevitable?

Freezing the memory

On that night in Russia in 2026, I cried when I finished writing "Messi's tears and Mbappe's smile." I wrote 1,200 words without a single statistic. And I learned that sometimes one sentence lingers longer than a scoreline.

With this FIDE election, the sentence I want to linger is this: when a sport must promise to bring its star back to prove its vitality, the problem is not the star. The problem is the promiser.

September 26 will pass. Samarkand will be quiet again. And in a distant coastal city, I will still sit here, writing about football and chess, between two regions of my memory, waiting to see whether players and administrators still have the courage to continue the moves they have begun.

A chess game only truly ends when someone admits defeat. And the question I leave with my readers is not who will win. The question is: when the ballots are counted, who will be the one to admit that chess is no longer the playground of chess players alone — and whether that is a good thing, or just a move forced by an external deadline?