In the Lower Bracket, where players can still finish as high as third, Carlsen, Nakamura, Wesley So, and Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu advanced. Carlsen edged Javokhir Sindarov 1½:½, while Nakamura swept Leinier Dominguez 2:0. So escaped some danger against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, drawing two games before pulling away in rapid play, and Praggnanandhaa ended Vincent Keymer’s tournament 1½:½.

The four eliminated players – Keymer, Dominguez, Abdusattorov, and Sindarov – share ninth place.

With the field now down to eight, the event enters its final weekend. Saturday will feature Lower Bracket semifinals, as Carlsen, Nakamura, So, and Praggnanandhaa fight to reach Sunday’s third-place match. Niemann and Aronian will meet Sunday in the Grand Final for the Las Vegas title.

It was nice to have two-time women’s world blitz champion IM Bibisara Assaubayeva joining the official broadcast for a while on Friday. “It was an amazing event and a good tournament,” she said. “It was maybe too strong for me but I was very happy to play and it was a very interesting experience.” As to what it takes to be successful in Freestyle chess, she said: “I think you should be a creative player.”

With that in mind, she said she was rooting for Aronian. “I think he is playing very interesting here and also he beat Magnus and yesterday he had a great comeback against Nakamura. I think he deserves to play the final match.”

UPPER BRACKET

Aronian – Arjun 2-0

“The world is a better place when Aronian is playing well,” 13th world champion Garry Kasparov famously tweeted when Aronian won the Sinquefield Cup in 2015. He is one of those players, similar to e.g. Vasyl Ivanchuk who, when in top form, can beat everyone. This week, Aronian definitely brought his A game to Vegas.

That seemed the case for Arjun as well, who treated the first 30+30 game aggressively and was looking good early on. As James Patterson put it: “He is just so quietly up for conflict, at all points in the game.” Quiet from the outside but a fierce fighter on the chessboard, Arjun was putting a lot of pressure on his opponent. Aronian was down to eight minutes with 20 for Arjun at some point.

It was a tough defense for Aronian but he managed to consolidate with a series of only moves. He then found the beautiful shot 25…Bxd4 and the game completely turned around. Arjun was under pressure and a pawn down, which he could win back and had two ways of doing so. He chose the wrong one and Aronian found a forced sequence of checks leading to a devastating double attack.

Due to an early positional error, Arjun got into an unfavorable pawn structure in the second game and could never create chances; (necessary) overpressing in an equal position led to another loss.

“He’s clearly very inspired,” said GM Vidit Gujrathi in the broadcast about Aronian. “He defeated Magnus and Hikaru in blitz, right? Especially against Hikaru it is really admirable because Hikaru just needed a draw and he had the white pieces, to clutch from there is just very cool. I am impressed by him.”

Niemann – Caruana 2.5-1.5

If there was still any doubt left about Niemann’s strength at the chessboard, he is silencing those doubters more and more. Reaching the final of a Grand Slam is an impressive achievement in itself and the 22-year-old American did so by eliminating Caruana, a two-time finalist in this format.

“I could not have scripted it any better, to come in for the qualifier and then, I was really on the ropes in this first game,” Niemann said in an interview. “I guess everything was just meant to be because, okay, in the second game I played brilliantly and I was in control in time pressure and so, I guess I got my type of position and I was able to outplay him. But yeah, speechless.”

In their first game, Niemann played faster but got to face some issues with his king safety and could only react to Caruana’s tactically forcing moves. The extra clock time came in handy for him to find an accurate defense as he recovered completely. Also in the second game the deadlock wasn’t broken, and so a tiebreak with two 10+10 games was needed here.

Caruana had a big chance the open the score in the first as he built up an overwhelming space advantage with the black pieces. However, with just over two minutes on the clock, he failed to find the most promising way and allowed Niemann, who once again had a time advantage as so often in this tournament, to escape.

It was a tough blow for the most experienced of the two, as Caruana couldn’t find a proper opening setup as White in the next game, and suffered early on. A pawn sacrifice close to his king didn’t help, and he was completely outplayed by Niemann, who made another a strong impression today.

LOWER BRACKET

The players who fell out of the Upper Bracket on Thursday got to pick their opponents for Friday, and did so in the order of their Freestyle Elo ratings prior to the tournament. Nakamura picked Dominguez, Praggnanandhaa chose Keymer, Abdusatorrov chose So, and Sindarov ended up playing Carlsen.

Carlsen – Sindarov 1.5-0.5

“The difference between top players and almost top players is the conversion rate; when they get a chance, they are like hungry sharks who just jump on you, and they don’t give you another chance.” Vidit pointed this out when Sindarov failed to win a promising, pawn-up game in his first clash with Carlsen, who then did strike in the second game. An opening similar to the Queen’s Gambit Accepted initially led to equality, and Sindarov kept it that way for a long time but when the players got low on time, one mistake lost a pawn, and then a careless rook check left the Uzbek in a hopeless position.

Nakamura – Dominguez 2-0

After his somewhat surprising elimination the other day, Nakamura was back to first-day form as he ruthlessly defeated his compatriot Dominguez 2-0, gradually outplaying his opponent in both games. We give the first, where he won a nice endgame after Dominguez refrained from defending passively:

Praggnanandhaa – Keymer 1.5-0.5

Already in the first game Praggnanandhaa had the better chances as he missed a win in a complicated endgame. The 19-year-old Indian did strike in the second game with a lovely pawn sacrifice to gain the d-file with his rook. Keymer defended too passively at several moments and eventually couldn’t handle his opponent’s pawn storm on the queenside.

So – Abdusattorov 3-1

The only match in the Lower Bracket that went to tiebreaks ended in a victory for the former Fischer Random World Champion. After two draws, So won the first tiebreak game when Abdusattorov miscalculated early in the opening, although he did miss a chance in timetrouble to get a good position again (see below). In the second game, So was too solid for 39 moves but there Abdusattorov was briefly winning; timetrouble once again prevented him from grabbing his chance.

Aronian and Niemann can now enjoy a day off, and will play the Grand Final on Sunday. The two semifinal losers, Arjun and Caruana, will join the Lower Bracket semifinals on Saturday where four players will fight for a spot on the podium. The losers in the Lower Bracket (Sindarov, Dominguez, Keymer, and Abdusattorov) were eliminated today, and share ninth place. The four winners will face off tomorrow in 10+10 games. The winners will play the Upper Bracket semifinal losers in the Lower Bracket semifinals, also in 10+10 games.