Aronian – Carlsen 1.5-0.5

Aronian has been known for many years as kind of a Chess960 expert, and he has often stated that he really loves this variant of the game. It is wonderful to see that even in the new era, when we are calling it Freestyle, he is still showing his prowess.

At 43 years old, Aronian was the oldest participant by a margin but finished on top for a second time in a row, after his victory in Las Vegas in July. He beat Carlsen back then, and he did it again today, in a match where an extra $80,000 was on the line: Aronian won the $200,000 first prize, while Carlsen made $120,000 this time around.

A big part of Aronian’s win in the final was the first game, where Carlsen never survived the opening phase. It seems that the players having the black pieces in that first game were a bit unlucky with the chosen position #454.

“I thought the starting position is one of these difficult positions where it’s not really easy to understand how to react to this 1.d4,” said Aronian after the game, and Keymer was of a similar opinion during a visit in the confession booth: “I think the starting position was quite dangerous for Black.”

All this was perhaps confirmed when Carlsen spent almost 10(!) minutes on his second move 2…e5. During that time, Aronian visited the confession booth as well, where he said that he expected 2…e5 coming, calling it a “gambito-style thing.”

Aronian felt that Carlsen should have taken back the pawn at some point instead of turning it into a true gambit: “My task was easier; I had a clear plan to develop. My general feeling was that he cannot afford not to take the pawn.”

After that, the game was a “total massacre, a one-man show,” as Peter Leko called it. “The bar slowly has no way to move further. It’s maxed out, the position is so overwhelming!”

Losing a third game in three days was very unusual for Carlsen. As Judit Polgar pointed out, he was not getting many promising positions out of the openings: he was missing his “natural touch,” as she put it.

Aronian, however, was the first to admit that the job wasn’t done yet as he said: “So far I have been lucky, let’s see how it goes!”

And indeed, Carlsen did put quite a lot of pressure on him in the second game. Although he was definitely a bit nervous, Aronian managed to defend quite accurately and hold the desired draw as follows:

“I think I played really well today,” the winner said afterward. “I think I was more or less in control in both games, I got good positions out of the openings so I am very happy and content with my play. I am actually, I would say, a bit proud of myself!”

He admitted that he was nervous: “Of course. You have to watch out not to make even a single inaccuracy against Magnus; he is so good in these endgames.”

When asked if perhaps it wasn’t all about luck anymore, Aronian had to agree: “Today I think I played really well. The other days not really. Maybe on the first day I played well and today. Two good days. But to get to the final was huge luck, of course.”

So what is his secret? “Having my family with me. They’re supporting me and giving me strength. I can highly recommend that!”

Keymer – Sindarov 3-1

“His play improved day by day,” said Leko after his protégé Keymer had secured third place in the tournament, and in a rather convincing manner. The young German, who won the first tournament of this Grand Slam back in February in Weissenhaus, finished third this time, good for $80,000. Sindarov won $60,000 for fourth place.

Sindarov was perhaps the only player behind the black pieces who didn’t face serious problems out of the opening in the first game, but he was still slightly worse. His 16th move was a big mistake though, which invited some easy, active moves by Keymer that put him under serious pressure. After one more mistake, Sindarov found himself in a lost position by move 19.

Keymer’s match victory was well deserved as he didn’t get into any problems in the next game and soon got the upper hand in an endgame. Eventually, his pawn majority was too strong and he was confident enough to announce the winning sequence in the confession booth.

“What I’m about to say could end up being very embarrassing but I think this pawn break will just work,” he said. “It’s the kind of breaks that you see in some endgame books for pawn endgames and I think I can use that here. The knight is too far away so if I calculated everything correctly now there is not even a way for him to make a clean draw and I only need a draw, so I am very happy right now and just hoping that I didn’t blunder anything and it will hopefully mean I will take third place!”

Caruana – Arjun 1.5-0.5

Caruana won the match for fifth place without needing a tiebreak against Arjun. The American grandmaster won the first game but not after surviving a tricky position out of the opening.

Perhaps Arjun was still trying to refute Black’s play at the board when he went for 12.h4, which sharpened the battle even more. The Indian GM didn’t follow up in the most precies way and allowed Caruana to consolidate. Arjun then tried another sacrifice, but that only made matters worse.

Arjun did get one chance to obtain a promising position in the second game, but he missed it and as soon as the queens were traded, Caruana was quite safe, and soon better. At the very end, he had the luxury of not needing to calculate a winning variation because he could force a repetition instead, enough for match victory. Caruana got a $40,000 cheque, while Arjun took home $35,000.

Niemann – Maghsoodloo 3-1

You cannot help but feel sorry for Maghsoodloo and how his tournament went. Many fans will have rooted for him scoring at least one win. And that’s what happened: the Iranian grandmaster got his first full point early in the day as he profited from a big mistake by Niemann in the opening. It is quite rare to see a player of this caliber make a losing mistake on move 4!

Unfortunately for Maghsoodloo, that’s where the fun ended. In the remaining three games, Niemann showed who was the best player on this day and in this match. First, he quickly leveled the score as this time it was Maghsoodloo who didn’t really survive the opening:

During the first blitz games a bird flew into the playing hall to check out the position—finally we had a true “bird’s eye view” of all the chess action! It put a smile on the faces of both players.

Soon, it was Niemann who had more reasons to smile as he got a pleasant, long-term advantage. Just when Maghsoodloo seemed to get back into the game, by trading into a holdable endgame, he blundered terribly and ran into checkmate (see below). In the next game, he got outplayed as well.

Maghsoodloo will want to forget this tournament as quickly as possible. In future tournaments, he’ll surely show what he’s capable of, when he finds back his form. He still won $15,000 in South Africa, while Niemann earned $25,0000.

And so the first full year of Freestyle Chess comes to an end, with the individual tournament winners (Keymer, Carlsen and Aronian) ending as the top three in South Africa. Carlsen won the first Tour with 121 points, ahead of Aronian with 84 points. Caruana did not win an individual leg but his consistency throughout the season earned him third the place with 73 points, just ahead of Keymer’s 71 points.

It was also a year that started with some turmoil between Freestyle Chess and the International Chess Federation (FIDE). Today, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich came with the following video message, shown at the end of the broadcast:

“Dear friends, FIDE welcomes an ambitious initiative of the Freestyle Chess team to develop the chess format traditionally known in the global chess community as Fischer Random or Chess960. The new brand has the potential to be a success story and we are open to collaborating a mutually beneficial way to that end. Congratulations to Jan Henric Buettner for the first season of the Freestyle Grand Slam and to its winner, the 16th world champion Magnus Carlsen. FIDE recognizes him now as the unambiguous number one in the world in this exciting version of chess.”

Organizer Jan Henric Buettner himself said that an announcement about the 2026 Tour will be made before the end of this year, so stay tuned for that and see you next year!