Christian Freeling

On 13 May 2000 in Enschede, SE Fireworks exploded 120 meters from Freeling's home, killing 23 people, wounding 947, and destroying 400 houses including Freeling's. Although uninjured, all his possessions and game materials were lost in the tragedy.

Grand Chess utilizes the same compound pieces as Capablanca Chess, but the starting setup connects the rooks, giving immediate freedom of movement and "yields the better game" (Schmittberger 1992:206). Internet Grand Chess World Championships have been held, and NOST sponsored yearly tournaments beginning in 1998. A Grand Chess tournament in Yerevan in 1996 attracted 21 chess masters.

Havannah, a connection game using hexagonal cells like Hex, offers "a subtler strategy and much more varied tactics" (Schmittberger 1992:116). The game was published by Ravensburger in 1981 and marketed for ten years, winning critical acclaim. In 2002, Freeling offered a €1,000 prize for any computer program in ten years that could beat him in even one game in a 10-game match, believing the nature of Havannah made the game difficult to program and therefore best played by human strategic thinking. In October 2012, via Internet, a 10-game match was conducted between Freeling and three Havannah bots. Freeling won by +7−3=0, losing two games to Lajkonik (Poland) and one game to Castro (Canada).

Freeling has three sons (Demian, born 1975; Myron, born 1978; Falco, born 1993) and one daughter (Ninja, born 1982). Demian invented Congo, a xiangqi variant, in 1982 when nearly 8 years old.

Christian Freeling (born 1 February 1947, in Enschede, Netherlands) is a Dutch game designer and inventor of abstract strategy games, notably Dameo, Grand Chess, Havannah, and Hexdame.