The position of the day had some interesting twists. First of all, from a certain perspective the positioning of the armies didn’t feel that random: we had the knights on the left, the royal family on the right, and, like yesterday, the two bishops centrally placed.

Secondly, and as Nakamura pointed out during the pre-game analysis, it was extremely close to one of the earlier positions in this tournament, which was #74, played in round 10 of the rapid round-robin, on the second day. The only difference was the light-squared bishop and the king had swapped places. (Interestingly, that was a round where White didn’t win a single game and Black won three, with two draws.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, considering his reputation, Nepomniachtchi was the only player to make his first move quickly: 1.e4. Of the other white players, only Rapport copied him, but the engine wasn’t a fan (and recommended 1.b4, in fact).

Abdusattorov’s and Praggnanandhaa’s 1.f4 made a lot of sense too as it immediately threatened a pawn on a7. (It’s always a good idea to look at the starting position and ask: is there a pawn unprotected?) In their turn, Caruana and Nakamura’s 1.c4 could be seen as a prophylactic move against Black’s queen potentially attacking that unprotected pawn on a2 while, of course, grabbing control in center as well.

Nepomniachtchi vs. Keymer ½-½, 0-1, ½-½

The classical game between Nepomniachtchi and Keymer saw a brief moment where the Russian player was better, but probably missed a tactical shot by Keymer that instantly equalized. This meant the players headed to a tiebreak, with first two 10+10 games on the program.

It was Keymer who started with an excellent win with the black pieces, where he also surprised with his time management: he was constantly up on the clock as well – not an easy feat against speed demon Nepomniachtchi.

“The time control matters but what matters most is the opening,” Keymer explained. “I went for this 4…Nd4, kind of forcing him to go 5.Kd2 which I felt should actually be good for him but I think he went wrong somewhere and then the king was way in the open and that makes it tougher to play.”

After move 14, Keymer had double the time, with seven min vs. three and a half. From there, he also started to gain an advantage on the board. Nepomniachtchi’s choice to trade his bishop for a knight wasn’t good, and from there, the young German finished it off flawlessly.

With the white pieces, Keymer initially got the advantage and won a pawn, then gave back the material to get into a very safe endgame, which he managed to hold but not without some high tension and a heart rate between 150 and 160.

Keymer about this: “To me it’s quite natural, also because I believe that we have to make decisions so quickly that it’s kind of needed that the body is under a lot of stress, otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to make decent decisions that quickly.”

The Grand Slam leader is still in contention to win another $200,000, while Nepomniachtchi is relegated to playing for fifth place now. Like Alireza Firouzja in Weissenhaus, the Russian GM picked his own poison.

Abdusattorov vs. Carlsen ½-½

After spending his evening with his wife in the Parc des Princes, seeing Paris St. Germain beat Aston Villa 3-1, football lover Carlsen survived a scare the next day on the chessboard. He was down at ‘halftime’, but managed to level the score eventually.

The problems kind of started early on. In the confession booth, Carlsen explained his surprising second and third moves: he thought he could sacrifice his c-pawn, but then changed his mind.

“I was trying to make it work and I couldn’t, so I was looking for another idea, like …d6, …b6. None of them really satisfied me so kind of by default I ended up with this stupid maneuver 3…Qe6 and the idea is to go 4.d3 Qd6 and then …Nc6 and …e5. I think it’s not terrible but it’s certainly a little bit worse for Black. At least it’s one of the peculiarities of this format that you get to make moves like this.”

Abdusattorov got the upper hand, and especially after 17.Bg4 things were looking dire for the world number one player. The Uzbek GM started a stare-down, feeling that he had a big, big chance.

He continued playing strongly and got close to a winning advantage, but a wrong recapture on move 33 spoiled it all, and Carlsen just needed some catenaccio to avoid the loss.

“His chess is really from another planet,” said commentator Tania Sachdev. “It amazes me every time. He’s the hardest player to commentate on, you just tend to run out of things to say.”

“I think he did a fantastic job today, putting a lot of pressure on me but yeah, I kept fighting and I don’t know how but somehow, I escaped,” Carlsen summarized the affair. Overall, he’s not too happy yet about his play.

“This is kind of the opposite honestly of Weissenhaus earlier this year where I couldn’t really get going at all in the rapid and once we started playing classical I felt a lot better,” said Carlsen. “This time, two days in a row I felt so clueless out of the opening. I’m just not figuring it out at all. Then, when we get to a faster phase, then I actually play well so it’s been a bit frustrating. But it’s the beauty of the game, it’s supposed to be hard. That’s why we play like this.”

Nakamura vs. Arjun 1-0

“Arjun is the Hikaru of Freestyle Fridays,” noted Sachdev early in the day, referring to Nakamura winning many Titled Tuesdays on Chess.com while Arjun has won three Freestyle Fridays in the Chess960 format in a row. That suggested Arjun might have been the slight favorite in this match, but with strong play in the second game, Nakamura proved otherwise.

First it was Arjun who seemed to develop a slight initiative, but Nakamura could neutralize it and it was more or less equal when the Indian GM started a strange knight maneuver after which White gained the upper hand. Nakamura won the bishop pair and then Black’s a-pawn, finishing it off with sharply calculated tactics.

Caruana vs. Vachier-Lagrave 1-0

After their up-and-down game on Wednesday, anything could happen in this clash between friends. Both went for the same setup as in Nakamura-Arjun, with quick castles and a “bath tub” pawn formation, in fact exactly how the engine would play it as well.

The first imbalance appeared with MVL’s pawn push on move nine, a deviation from Arjun’s play which he explained in the confession booth: he wanted to be able to answer 10.Bf3 with 10…g4. Vachier-Lagrave felt he was fine with his pieces “solid and coordinated,” but in reality, White was getting a slight edge.

With some fine maneuvering, Caruana increased that edge further and further until Black’s position suddenly looked hopeless. An exchange sacrifice was a desperate measure by Vachier-Lagrave that didn’t change the course of events: the local hero is no longer in contention for the top prize.

Vidit – Praggnanandhaa ½-½

At least he will have more time to celebrate an actual honeymoon in Paris, but Vidit won’t be all too happy that his tournament is already over. After his unfortunate loss the other day, the newly-wed couldn’t get an advantage and eventually he was forced to give a perpetual check himself. Since there is no fight for 11th-12th place, it was there where Vidit’s tournament ended.

Gukesh – Rapport ½-½

This game, a must-win for the classical world champion, went quite differently from all the others today. Black did get to take that unprotected a-pawn with his queen (a trade for his f-pawn), which was a bit of a risky affair. Gukesh gained the bishop pair and with it, a sizeable advantage.

Everything was going well for the young Indian, until he gave all of his avantage away with one move, the natural-looking 24.Bg6. Rapport was instantly doing fine, and had no problem holding the draw that he needed.

Rapport will now face another young Indian, Praggnanandhaa, for ninth place, while Gukesh and Vidit are done playing. They share 11th place and have both earned $7,500 here in Paris. There’s a chance we’ll be seeing them join the commentary in the coming days, when we’ll have the semifinals, the matches for 5th-8th place and the one for 9th-10th starting 13:00 CEST on Friday.

We’ll see the following matches:

Nakamura vs. Keymer
Caruana vs. Carlsen
Nepomniachtchi vs. Arjun
Abdusattorov vs. Vachier-Lagrave
Rapport vs. Praggnanandhaa