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Carlsen, Caruana, Keymer Win; Nakamura Lets Sindarov Escape
Magnus Carlsen confessed to accidentally setting a trap for Nodirbek Abdusattorov! Photo: Lennart Ootes/Freestyle Chess.

Carlsen, Caruana, Keymer Win; Nakamura Lets Sindarov Escape

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Colin_McGourty
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| 40 | Chess Event Coverage

World number-one Magnus Carlsen exploited a mistake on move three by GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and went on to play a perfect 23-move game to take the lead in their 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam quarterfinal. There were also wins for GM Vincent Keymer, over GM Alireza Firouzja, and for GM Fabiano Caruana, who won a nerve-wracking time-trouble battle against World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. GM Hikaru Nakamura let GM Javokhir Sindarov escape in a seemingly hopeless endgame.

In the consolation battle for ninth place, GM Levon Aronian scored his first win of the event, against GM Vladimir Fedoseev. All the players who lost the first game will have a chance to hit back on Monday and force tiebreaks. 

Day four of the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam begins on Monday, February 10, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CET / 5:30 p.m. IST.  

Knockout Day 1 Results

Main Bracket

Carlsen 1-0 Abdusattorov

Abdusattorov's opening didn't work out against Carlsen. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Freestyle Chess.

23-move wins with an accuracy of 98.7 don't come often at the top level, with Carlsen telling the live commentators he'd already felt good going into the game. With some help from Sindarov, he'd dodged the bullet of a quarterfinal against Nakamura, and he was also happy to have the white pieces against Abdusattorov for the first game of their quarterfinal:

For me, there was no doubt that I wanted to choose White in the first game. Abdusattorov is very strong, but he’s not the most solid; he usually gives you chances. He gets a lot of chances as well, but he’s not somebody who’s going to shut you down. I felt very good about my chances of putting pressure on him with the white pieces. Obviously, most games are not going to be quite as smooth as this, but I always felt very good about playing with White. 

Obviously, most games are not going to be quite as smooth as this!

—Magnus Carlsen

The world number-one had prepared alone but wasn't too surprised that 1.f4, opening an attack by the g1-bishop on the undefended a7-pawn, had appeared on all five boards.

Carlsen commented: 

There’s such a magnetism about a move that attacks something on the very first move, that it’s very hard not to do it. In normal chess it’s not possible, but here you threaten to win an exchange on move one—it’s very hard not to make that move.

Abdusattorov was the one player to respond in kind with 1...f5 rather than defend the pawn, before both players captured the hanging pawn. Carlsen told IM Levy Rozman that it reminded him of his game against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi from the first-ever Freestyle Friday, except switched to the other side of the board. 

Carlsen even spent a while working out why in that earlier position castling had been possible on move one but here it wasn't, before realizing that to castle long in the game position the bishop needed to move from d1 first.

Carlsen pushed e4 and was then shocked by Abdusattorov's decision to take the rook on move three—so shocked that he became the only player to visit the confessional.

He felt it was "a crazy decision," though he later understood that Abdusattorov had feared the rook might escape by castling in some lines. Nevertheless, the cure was worse than the disease, and White gained a big advantage by getting his queen to the center first. New rules of thumb are emerging for Freestyle Chess, with Carlsen commenting:

When the queen starts out in the corner, that’s sort of a red alert for us because we know that, in a lot of cases, if the position opens up, all other things being equal, if one queen is active and the other person’s queen is stuck in the corner, then you usually have a huge advantage.

"All his attempts to break out are doomed to fail," he said, with Abdusattorov needing to dig in and defend, while the moment all agreed it was over was when Abdusattorov quickly played 18...Ned7?, allowing 19.Nd4!.

Carlsen called that "a weak moment" and "borderline unforgivable" in his interviews, though by that point the suggested 18...Ne6 was unlikely to change the outcome of the game. It would have demanded some care, however, while in the game the defending champion noted, "I barely have to calculate anything."

The clash was soon over.

"I try to land the first punch with these short matches," said Carlsen, though Abdusattorov will have a chance to hit back on Monday and force rapid and blitz tiebreaks.

Firouzja 0-1 Keymer

Firouzja "bit off more than he could chew," according to Carlsen. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Freestyle Chess.

The second game to finish saw Keymer defeat the player who had won the Round-Robin and selected him, and once again the opening had a lot to do with it. This time the drama came on move four, with Keymer taking seven minutes to play the subtle 4...c6!?.

He explained he'd needed the time to make sure 5.Bh5 wasn't just winning on the spot for White, which it isn't because of the strong 5...Bd5!. Why move the c-pawn instead of 4...Bd5 immediately, as played by the other players with the black pieces?

It’s kind of annoying for him to make a move because he doesn’t want to retreat the rook himself. And Ne3 would be a nice developing move, but you can’t really trap the rook on e4, so I think he was in trouble to find a decent move and spending a lot of time, which also, of course, is extremely helpful for me. 

Keymer's ploy worked to perfection, since Firouzja thought 33 minutes over the exotic 5.h4?!, which when combined with 6.Qh2, 7.h5, and 8.Qh4 was described by Carlsen as "an attempt of biting off a little more than he can chew!"

"I believe in Alireza’s ability to hustle in general, but I think he’s got his work cut out for him," Carlsen added, and though we did get some wild complications, in the end the white pieces found themselves hopelessly stranded as Keymer targeted the white king.

Firouzja lost to Carlsen after winning the first game of their quarterfinal in 2024. He'll be hoping he can reverse that pattern to reach the Semifinals in 2025. 

Gukesh 0-1 Caruana

Gukesh-Caruana was intense! Photo: Stev Bonhage/Freestyle Chess.

The most exciting decisive game of the round, by some margin, was the clash between the world champion and the 2018 world championship challenger. It developed into a brawl early on, with the commentators shocked at how calm Gukesh managed to remain.

What made it doubly exciting was the time situation, as both players would end up living on the 30-second increment added each move, with no time added at move 40. Caruana commented:

It was an enormously complicated game, and time trouble is eternal! Once you get there, you’re down to your 30-second increment for the rest of the game. 

Caruana admitted he "could definitely have lost," with Gukesh at one point having the option to play a powerful queen sacrifice, but in the end the U.S. champion won with a flourish—delighting GM Judit Polgar by showing similar attacking instincts! 

That's our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao takes a look at below. 

Gukesh now needs to do what he still hasn't done in Weissenhaus this year—win a game—to stay in the fight for the $200,000 top prize.

Sindarov ½-½ Nakamura

Sindarov picked Nakamura and lived to tell the tale—so far. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Freestyle Chess.

19-year-old Sindarov's choice of Nakamura as an opponent meant we avoided what had seemed inevitable—a Carlsen-Nakamura quarterfinal. Carlsen explained his surprise:

I think Sindarov is one of the younger guys, he maybe doesn’t have the respect for the older guys as much as the others, but I just think in general Hikaru at a classical time control is very, very solid, very hard to beat, and after a first day when he was vulnerable, he actually played well yesterday, so it wouldn’t have been my choice! I was, of course, happy that he made that choice.

Initially Sindarov's position looked good, but he lost his way in the middlegame and found himself in a lost endgame, where it seemed it was only a matter of time until Nakamura took the lead. One mistake, 49...Ng6?, however, and Sindarov was able to save himself.

For a while it looked like he might not find the crucial 50.b6!, but he did, and from there he made no mistake.

In his recap Nakamura called that "an extremely disappointing result," and added, "Probably a couple of years ago I win this 100 times out of 100," though he also noted the real mistake had come earlier.

Check out Nakamura's recap below:

That was the last quarterfinal, but there's also one more match, for ninth place and the difference between $12,500 and $7,500 in prize money. 

Aronian 1-0 Fedoseev

Aronian, who last year finished in third place, had a miserable Round-Robin, scoring three draws, six losses, and no wins. It was some consolation, therefore, that he played the second smoothest game of the day to beat Fedoseev. His accuracy of 94.9 percent was bettered only by Carlsen, with no one else scoring above 90.

Levon Aronian finally picked up a win! Photo: Stev Bonhage/Freestyle Chess.

Fedoseev's 2...f6 was an original handling of the position, but things didn't work out and by the time 14.Ne4! saw the knight occupy a dream outpost, it was clear White had total positional domination. Aronian wrapped things up with aplomb.

Monday will be intense, since four players must win on demand, and if we have tied matches after the classical games, we'll get two 10+10 games, then, if needed, two 5+2 games, and finally armageddon. 

    How To Watch
    You can review the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam on the Chess.Com or Chess24 YouTube, or Chess.com or Chess24 Twitch channels, as well as on GM Hikaru Nakamura's Kick channel. You can also check out the games on our dedicated events page.
    GMs David Howell and Daniel Naroditsky, IMs Tania Sachdev and Levy Rozman, and James Dash hosted the community broadcast.
    GMs Judit Polgar, Peter Leko, and Niclas Huschenbeth hosted the expert broadcast.

    The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam starts with the $750,000 first of five legs in Weissenhaus, Germany, on February 7-14. The 10 players first play each other once in 10+10 rapid chess, with the bottom two eliminated and the top players choosing their opponents in the knockout. Each knockout round consists of two-game 90+30 classical chess matches. In case of a tie, two 10+10 games are played. If still tied, two 5+2 games are played, then a single armageddon game. All games are played in freestyle chess.  

    Previous coverage:

    Colin_McGourty
    Colin McGourty

    Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.

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