On what was another very sunny day in Paris, five more rounds of rapid chess in the Chess960 were played on Tuesday. It was a do or die situation for just about half of the field, as most of the players hadn’t secured their place in the quarterfinals just yet.

Vidit came into the playing hall as the tail-ender and was realistic about it when he said: “I’m not thinking too much about the standings to be honest because now I am not in such a favorable position. I just want to play some good games and feel good about myself.”

The newlywed  suffered a heartbreaking loss in the opening round of the day against Rapport. The Hungarian player, who was the only one to prefer preparing for the new position alone, at the board, wasn’t doing well out of the opening but managed to turn things around, thereby robbing his opponent of his last, slim chance. Vidit remained at the board for a while, visibly disappointed.

Abdusattorov suffered his first loss in the tournament vs. Arjun, which meant that a draw for Carlsen against Keymer was enough to grab the sole lead. Gukesh, who hadn’t started well on the first day, first defeated Praggnanandhaa and then also Keymer in round eight to keep hopes alive of making it to the next stage.

Interestingly, the starting position in this eighth round had also occurred in the 2024 G.O.A.T. Challenge in Weissenhaus and two pairings were the same! Whereas Keymer had beaten Gukesh there, we also saw a repeat of Carlsen and Abdusattorov playing this position – the Norwegian won then, and now.

Carlsen, who showed a remarkably low heart rate at times today,  gave up his queen for three minor pieces and explained that decision as follows: “I had missed the previous move that he had made. I thought I was doing quite well and after I missed that it seemed hard for me to coordinate my pieces properly, so I decided: this looks quite interesting. I thought it was not a bad practical decision at all, even though I suspect objectively it wasn’t that good. ”

By now, Carlsen, Abdusattorov and Nepomniachtchi were certain of the quarterfinals, while a playoff for players finishing in a tie involving eighth place seemed likely. The question was also, who is going to avoid early elimination by finishing among the final four?

Keymer, the glorious winner in February in Weissenhaus, was one of those in danger, and so his win in the ninth round was an important one. He defeated none other than Nakamura, who happened to have played the starting position twice in the 2022 Chess960 World Championship, where he scored 1.5/2.

By this time, Arjun and Vachier-Lagrave had secured their places and five players were still in contention for three remaining spots.

Keymer scored another important win back-to-back, this time swiftly beating (and eliminating!) Praggnanandhaa. “I think in the opening it went just really, really wrong for him and immediately his position was bad,” Keymer explained.

In this penultimate round, Nakamura secured his quarterfinal spot as he reached 5 points with a scary draw against Abdusattorov, who missed a win in an opposite-colored bishop endgame.

Rapport defeated Gukesh, which meant the two were now in ninth and tenth place with 3.5 points, a full point behind Keymer and Caruana who were on 4.5. As it turned out, these two were paired against each other for the final round, so that was decided, right? Both needed the draw, so that would surely happen?

Caruana noted before the game that in Freestyle it’s harder to actually get that mutually beneficial draw than in classical chess, because there is no pre-game knowledge along the lines of “let’s play a Berlin Ruy Lopez or a Four Knights.” Also, draw offers not allowed before move 40.

Caruana’s words were prophetic as he got into trouble early on, when Keymer found a double pawn sacrifice to gain control over the a1-h8 diagonal. The American GM, runner-up in the first leg in Weissenhaus, tried to defend but couldn’t hold the game. It was a big advertisement for Freestyle Chess, because in any other tournament we would surely have seen a (boring?) draw between these players.

This meant that Gukesh and Rapport, both on 3.5 points, still had a chance to catch Caruana if they would win their game. That would have led to a playoff, but in the end, this didn’t happen.

First it was classical World Champion Gukesh who failed to make the cut, getting himself into a lost position as early as move five. Nepomniachtchi refuted his opening play and ended up winning the round-robin on the third tiebreaker which was Sonneborn-Berger, after finishing on equal points (and with a draw between the players) with Carlsen.

Only Rapport could now still catch Caruana for a playoff, but he was in trouble vs. Nakamura. After losing his own game, Caruana walked to their board and watched this game end, as probably the biggest supporter of Nakamura in this moment!

With a win against the luckless Vidit, Arjun overtook Abdusattorov in the final standings. Without the need of a playoff, the eight names for the knockout phase are now decided.

During dinner, a small ceremony took place for the pairings in the knockout phase. Nepomniachtchi had the first right to choose his opponent from places 5-8 (Abdusattorov, Nakamura, Keymer, and Caruana), and made the bold move to go for Weissenhaus winner Keymer. Carlsen then chose Abdusattorov, and Vachier-Lagrave picked Caruana.

Full pairings:

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

Matches for 9th-12th place:
Praggnanandhaa vs. Vidit
Rapport vs. Gukesh