Starting Position 270, played in the second classical game of the quarterfinals, featured a knight on a1, prompting all White players to begin with 1.Nb3. Not all players behind the black pieces responded in the same way.

Abdusattorov-Carlsen 0-1 (0-2)

Carlsen, playing Black against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, was unimpressed, calling the move “not super dangerous” in the confession booth. He spent almost five minutes thinking, and looking at the other games, before coming up with an entirely different response: 1…f6.

In the confession booth, he said: “I must admit that I’m a little bit surprised that the players playing White talked for 10 minutes and all came up with the same first move. It didn’t seem that obvious to me. It doesn’t look super dangerous to me so I’m reasonably satisfied so far!”

The Norwegian superstar  took over the game comfortably and secured another of his trademark endgame wins.

Keymer-Firouzja ½-½ (1.5-0.5)

Firouzja’s handpicking of Keymer for the quarterfinals has backfired as the German grandmaster held his own and managed to beat his strong opponent 1.5-0.5 thanks to a draw today. That happened after being under a lot of pressure, which resulted from a surprising choice on move seven. Why? Because he had forgotten about Black’s annoying move 9…Na4.

“Here he suddenly has actual chances to play for something or even to be better,” said Keymer. “This was really not a great choice by me.” And about the situation after move 14 he was even more negative: “The position is quite sad for White, that’s for sure.”

While Firouzja seemed to have a free hand with an attack on the queenside, handling it was actually not so easy. Somehow, Keymer managed to hold on as he got a chance to run away with his king. Then, all of a sudden Firouzja blundered an important pawn, and the tables turned.

Keymer noted that Firouzja would never have gotten into a lost position if he didn’t need to play for a win, but that’s what happened and Keymer had the luxury of repeating moves instead.

Caruana-Gukesh 1-0 (2-0)

Fabiano Caruana was the first to qualify, eliminating World Champion Gukesh in just 18 moves. After losing game one, Gukesh sacrificed a pawn in the opening to create chances, but it backfired quickly.

At the start of the game, Peter Leko commented about the classical world champion: “Yesterday he was in very good spirits. We played a great table football match, with my wife against Gaju [Gukesh’s second Grzegorz Gajewski – PD] and Gukesh. Gukesh was extremely impressive as a defender and his goalie was saving everything… If he can bring the same spirit to the game, he’ll be fighting!”

Well, Gukesh tried to fight, but in the end, the game was not much of a fight to be honest. Caruana called this quick and smooth win was a “symptom of the match situation.”

Judit Polgar pointed out that this particular starting position was somewhat unfortunate for a player with the black pieces who needs to win their games: “It was clear from the beginning that the opening favors White, especially if he needs to make a draw. There seems to be no danger really for White. There were no pieces that needed to be recovered from crazy squares. (…) It was kind of much easier for White to stabilize the position.”

Afterward, Caruana agreed: “I was really calm before the game because I didn’t see this as a particularly challenging for the white side in my current situation.” He added: “I think it really comes down to yesterday. The game today was typical for someone who is trying to create chances to win but doing it a bit too early on. It was too violent an approach, 5…f5, it’s probably not gonna work out. It would be very unusual that you can sac a pawn so directly.”

About Gukesh’s early resignation, he commented: “I didn’t expect it exactly at that moment but I also didn’t understand what he could possibly do. I would consider resigning as Black although maybe I wouldn’t do it quite so early.”

Sindarov-Nakamura 2-0 (2.5-1.5)

Before the playoff, Chess.com CCO Daniel Rensch made a grand entrance, interpreting the Freestyle dress code in his own freestyle way—showing up in a bathrobe as he drew the position. Then it got serious. In a high-pressure, high-pulse match, Sindarov pulled off a surprise win against Nakamura, grinding down the world’s best defender in the playoff.

After their draw the other day, the second classical game between Nakamura and Sindarov ended without a result as well. The 37-year-old American grandmaster had the best chances in the endgame, but 19-year-old Sindarov defended extremely well.

Thus, a playoff was one the menu, with games of 10 minutes and a 10-second increment, like in the preliminary round-robin.

It’s still quite a rare occurrence for Chess960 positions to have any kind of history, but the one from the first playoff game was also played in four games at GM level in Biel 2023, where David Navara, Le Quang Liem and Arjun Erigaisi started with 1.f4, as did Nakamura.

Sindarov spent two minutes (!) on 1…Nc6, which can thus be called a novelty, but it wasn’t a good one. Peter Leko said: “A shocking move, he is not fighting for the center.”

Nakamura started outplaying his 18 years younger opponent but then got careless. Instead of playing a winning move, he missed Black’s devilish pawn push with the c-pawn, and everything changed.

“I was lucky that he didn’t see my …c5 move,” said Sindarov, whose heart rate went up to 149 after playing the winning move 24…Qb6, and up to 155 after 31…c4. He finished it off with great accuracy.

What followed was just as dramatic. Once again, for the third time in this mini-match, Nakamura reached a winning position, and for the third time he failed to actually win it.

It should be noted that the starting position for this second playoff game was already seen at Weissenhaus: it was also played in the sixth round of the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge’s preliminary round-robin tournament in 2024.

Sindarov was doing well first, after the opening. “I think in my opinion I had a winning position because his night on h8 was very bad,” he said. “Then I think he played quite amazing because he realized all of his chances and yeah, I didn’t see many ideas.”

It was the Uzbek GM to commit the first big mistake on move 20. Nakamura was soon positionally winning, then also materially, but Sindarov refused to give up. Eventually, he managed to swindle his opponent once again to crash through to the semifinals where he will play Fabiano Caruana.

“In my opinion he is one of the best players here. I will try my best to beat him, of course, but it will be very hard and he is very strong in my opinion. Hikaru was also very strong, but I was too lucky to win this match.”

Fedoseev-Aronian ½-½ (0.5-1.5)

Both Aronian and Fedoseev had participated in a poker night on Sunday, organized by Alexandra Botez and held in the cellar of the Weissenhaus, with Magnus Carlsen among the players as well. The friendly atmosphere, away from the battles at the board, is exemplary for this tournament but as soon as the arbiter starts the clocks, the players are enemies again, also when the ninth place is at stake.

In the opening, both players castled long and some symmetry in the position suggested a calm game ahead, but just a few moves later things got extremely tactical. Especially around move 18 it was quite exciting, and in fact both players, first Fedoseev, then Aronian, entered the confession booth telling the spectators what they were calculating and also both admitting what they had missed in their calculations.

As it turned out, Aronian maneuvered the best in the wild complications and actually reached a winning position, but since a draw was enough for him, he chose a pawn-up endgame and soon agreed to a draw.