The current world champion is still Magnus Carlsen. #1's position as the finest chess player is still evident, but this year, particularly from the younger group of Indian Grandmasters, his dominance has been questioned. Since he downplayed the caliber of the encounter by criticizing D Gukesh's World Championship win over Ding Liren, Carlsen has been under fire.

Viswanathan Anand, the vice president, was also the target of Carlsen's attacks, and he has been at odds with FIDE. In the first round of Norway Chess, Carlsen defeated Gukesh, but the Indian GM ultimately prevailed. Even if he later defeated Carlsen in spectacular fashion, it wasn't enough as the Norwegian won the tournament. Carlsen also lost Round 6 and angrily pounded his table, which went viral.

After that, Carlsen made fun of Gukesh and referred to him as "one of the weaker players" in front of the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia. In the Rapid round, Gukesh once again prevailed over Carlsen. The Norwegian, however, recovered to defeat Gukesh during the Blitz phase.

Carlsen stated in an interview with Freestyle Chess's YouTube channel that it was due to a total breakdown of his skills in Las Vegas, where he also lost to R Praggnanandhaa. "I could have scraped through with some help, of course, but it would have been totally underserved," he said. Thus, it was a total collapse, and indeed, sometimes you have a terrible day, which I've experienced in Freestyle before in the preliminaries, but there's been a little bit more of a margin to get through. Not this time. It's no justification. I should still manufacture it.

"When things begin to go south a little bit, I simply want to break out of the bubble. I feel like I'm alone in my thoughts sometimes, and it might have been simpler to move on if I could have chatted with someone I knew well.

He also said that during his most recent games, his "nervous system" started to fail. "It's been a thing recently that when things are going well, I play really well and then I'm not really able to sort of change bad trends. It's really awful when my neurological system starts to fail. In nearly every competition, I experience bad days. Sometimes they simply occur at inconvenient times, you know?

"I haven't felt at the top of my game in Zagreb (at the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia tournament) or here, but at least now that there's no pressure because I have nothing to play for, perhaps I can enjoy the games a little bit more. I was just trying to have a good time playing chess today, and it went well for me to play dynamically from the beginning. "Thus, in Freestyle Chess, it's somewhat simpler to play for the love of the game than in some other chess styles, even if you don't have anything to play for," he continued.

This year, Carlsen's performance has declined, and he was defeated by German GM Vincent Keymer in the semifinals of the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam.

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