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Carlsen Advances After Nakamura Resigns In Winning Position
Both players could hardly believe the bizarre ending to game four.

Carlsen Advances After Nakamura Resigns In Winning Position

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NM AnthonyLevin
| 39 | Chess Event Coverage

GM Magnus Carlsen earned his spot in the 2025 Chess.com Classic Grand Final after knocking GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Hikaru Nakamura out of the Winners Bracket. In a hard-to-believe finale, Nakamura seemed on the verge of a comeback in game four when he suddenly resigned in a winning position, not seeing the winning move 33.Rfg3!. 

In the Losers Bracket, we saw GMs Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Wei Yi, Arjun Erigaisi, Vladislav Artemiev, and Levon Aronian get eliminated. The last ones left are Abdusattorov and Nakamura (as they just dropped down) as well as GMs Vladimir Fedoseev, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

We'll see the Losers Bracket resolved with one winner on Thursday, May 22, starting at 11:15 a.m. ET / 17:15 CEST / 9:45 p.m. IST. Then, on Friday, is the Grand Final.

Playoffs Bracket

At this point, we know that the following players are going to the 2025 Esports World Cup in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia by the tour points they accrued across the two CCT events. Players will have one last opportunity at the WSC Last Chance Qualifier held in Riyadh later on, and qualification to that event is possible through the DreamHack Dallas festival this weekend. The rest of the tournament is going to be about the prize money, with $25,000 for first place.

It should go without saying, but Carlsen is favored to win the event. Whoever wins the Losers Bracket will have to defeat him twice in the Grand Final.

Winners Bracket: Carlsen Wins In 'Absurd' Fashion

Winners Semifinals: No Problems For Carlsen, Close Match For Nakamura

Carlsen 3-1 Abdusattorov

Carlsen was never once worse against Abdusattorov in their four games. He won game one, drew game two, and finally won with Black in game four when a draw would have been enough.

The first was the nicest, where on the white side of a QGD Semi-Tarrasch, Carlsen played the temporary pawn sacrifice starting with 22.d5!? to saddle his opponent with an isolated d-pawn, one he'd round up much later in the game. Also worth checking out was a brilliant tactic Carlsen missed, 26.e6!!, a line-opener that would have won at least a piece in the next three moves.

Nakamura 3-2 Nepomniachtchi

After trading wins and two draws in the regular games, the match between Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi was only decided in armageddon. Nakamura won on demand with the white pieces after his opponent blundered a fork.

As commentator GM Aman Hambleton pointed out, the mutual king shuffles of 30...Kh7 31.Kh1 Kg8 (it was better to leave the king on h7) lulled Nepomniachtchi into a false sense of security, while Nakamura covertly set up the winning tactic with 32.Qf3.

You can also check out Nakamura's video recap below.

Winners Final: A Finale For The Books

Carlsen 3-1 Nakamura

The match started with two draws, and most of the drama happened in the last two games, which Carlsen won. Nakamura had a fleeting opportunity to win with the black pieces in game one after Carlsen allowed 22.Nd2? Bg5!, but the world number-one managed to hold an opposite-color bishop endgame down a pawn.

After a draw, game three was an absolute gem played by Carlsen, where his exchange sacrifice with 16.Rxd7! seemed to surprise not only the commentators but also Nakamura. Hambleton said of this move just after it was played:

At this level, to shock Hikaru Nakamura with a move, period, is tough to do... not once did I consider Rxd7, it just didn't occur to me, but the best players in the world look at every possible move. And I'm not even saying that this is an absolute win for Magnus, but it's certainly a surprise. That is a big element in a move's success.

From there, Carlsen did what he's the best in the world at doing: making the most of a slight, nagging advantage. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the superb Game of the Day below.

What happened next is just something we almost never see in professional chess, even at faster time controls: a grandmaster resigning in a winning position. Readers may remember GM Sam Shankland resigning a drawn position against GM Anish Giri in Tata Steel Chess 2019 round 11, but that wasn't a winning position.

Nakamura resigned in the following position, seeing that he was going to lose his queen or his rook. Of course, under different circumstances, he would have found the winning move 33.Rfg3! in the blink of an eye.

You can see the clip of the day's most dramatic moment below. Carlsen later explained that he'd seen the winning move for White right after he sacrificed his rook and that "when he resigned, it was a bit absurd because at that point I was just desperately looking for ways that I could prolong the game." Despite the "absurd" end, he said "I'll take it, of course!"

Nakamura isn't out yet, as he'll have a second life in the Losers Final on Thursday.

Losers Bracket: 5 Players Still Kicking

Five more players were eliminated in two rounds of the Losers Bracket. 

In the first set of matches, Fedoseev shockingly defeated Caruana with a 2-0 sweep. In the second game, he was better, but his opponent resigned immediately after making a mouse slip.

Artemiev, on the other hand, outplayed Ding in a picture-perfect bishop endgame where one side had all of his pawns on the right color—and the other side had them all on the wrong color.

When you dream of same-color bishop endgames, as many regular people do, this is the position you should envision.

Vachier-Lagrave beat Arjun 2-1 in a chaotic match that ended with him winning with White in armageddon (that featured him giving his queen for rook, bishop, and pawn). Game one was so complicated that neither player could accurately assess the tactics, though the French GM won in the end.

It's a bit of a shame that Wei got eliminated, after finding a stunning positional idea against Aronian in their armageddon game. The exchange sacrifice 26.Rxe4! left both Black's queen and rook paralyzed. Many moves later, however, in time trouble, Wei let the win slip. This would have otherwise been a strong contender for Game of the Day.

In the next round of matches, Fedoseev got the better of Artemiev in game two. He converted a bishop vs. knight endgame (with rooks on the board) in what looked to be convincing fashion—that is, until you look at the engine evaluation. That being said, it was only a question of whether he was better or winning at every turn.

Vachier-Lagrave eliminated Aronian 2-0 in their match. First, he won a rook endgame; then he won game two with an efficient checkmating attack.

Carlsen gets a rest day while Thursday will determine one winner in the Losers Bracket. Who do you think will challenge Carlsen in the Grand Final, and how do you assess their chances of winning? Let us know in the comments below!

    How To Watch
    You can watch the event on Chess.com's YouTube or Twitch channels, as well as on GM Hikaru Nakamura's Kick channel. You can also check out the games on our dedicated events page.
    GM Aman Hambleton and IM Levy Rozman hosted the expert broadcast.

    The Chess.com Classic is the second of two legs in the 2025 Champions Chess Tour. On May 19, the world's best players competed in the Play-in, a nine-round Swiss with a 10-minute time control (no increment). The top eight qualify, with eight invited players, for the Playoffs, a four-day event on May 20-23 with a prize fund of $150,000. The top-12 on the CCT leaderboard make it to the Esports World Cup in the summer of 2025.

    Previous coverage:

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