Keymer Defeats Carlsen, Caruana Wins Marathon Vs. Sindarov

GMs Vincent Keymer and Fabiano Caruana won two grueling matches and advance to the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Final. In the shorter match, Keymer ended GM Magnus Carlsen's hopes of earning the $200,000 first prize by drawing game two, while it took six games and nearly eight hours for Caruana to finally defeat GM Javokhir Sindarov in the armageddon tiebreak, after even scores in the preceding classical, rapid, and blitz games.

GM Alireza Firouzja had a winning attack, but GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov turned everything around and won in the time scramble. The Uzbek wunderkind will contest fifth place in a match with GM Hikaru Nakamura, who defeated World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju 1.5-0.5 in rapid tiebreaks. 

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

• Semifinals Day 2 Results & Standings
• Carlsen ½-½ Keymer
• Sindarov 0-1 Caruana In Armageddon
• Firouzja 0-1 Abdusattorov
• Nakamura ½-½ Gukesh, 1.5-0.5 in rapid

Semifinals Day 2 Results

Main Bracket

While Keymer's victory over Carlsen was a relatively safe landing for the youngster, who did the hard work on Tuesday, the match between Sindarov and Caruana really could have gone either way.

Carlsen ½-½ Keymer

If anyone can come back from a tough loss, Carlsen is the guy. But even though he won Titled Tuesday hours after losing his first Freestyle game the previous day, he couldn't bring the same magic to his game on Wednesday.

Keymer told Take Take Take that this match win over the world number-one is a big career step forward: "Mostly I'm relieved that I managed to survive this very tough game and also it's for me personally an incredible achievement to beat Magnus in a match."

 ... it's for me personally an incredible achievement to beat Magnus in a match.

—Vincent Keymer

Keymer was better out of the opening with the black pieces, especially after Carlsen, needing to win, avoided the trade of bishops with 8.Bc5?, a move that wasn't good objectively but at least kept pieces on. After a few more moves, Keymer understood he had a golden opportunity, saying: 

Even if I was in a must-win situation that position would have been quite nice. My position was, I think, clearly better and I was up on the clock about 20 minutes. 

But when the German number-one played 16....0-0-0? (he realized 16...Be6! kept all the control after), Carlsen finally had the chance he needed, driving his pawn from e2 to e5 and cramping the black position. Keymer said, "To get myself into that much trouble after that is not something I'm proud of, but it happened."

He was human, after all, and Carlsen proved that he too wasn't infallible to making mistakes. Carlsen's last chance was 32.c5! with winning chances, and once he missed that Keymer never gave him another opportunity. The optimistic German youngster knew he was in trouble, but he also said, "I don't think there was a single moment when I felt that my position was hopeless."

Although some may see this match win as revenge for the 2023 FIDE World Cup encounter, Keymer said the thought never occurred to him. The next question, of course, is after defeating the top seed, can he bring the same stellar form to his match against Caruana in the Final?

Keymer said he has no trouble sleeping during tournaments, and Caruana will need to clear his mind after a significantly longer match to bring his best on Thursday.

Sindarov 0-1 Caruana In Armageddon

The 7.5-hour marathon was certainly one of the longest, if not toughest, matches in Caruana's career. Immediately after winning, he said, "I can't even explain how difficult this match was. I really was very fortunate in the last two games, of course, and every game was tough. He put so much pressure on me." The "Sindarella story" wasn't meant to be, after all.

If Sindarov wins it will be a real Sindarella story https://t.co/8tGAFzdIDX

— Julesgambit (@julesgambit) February 12, 2025

We will get to all of them, but Caruana said his best moment was the penultimate game, when he won on demand to force tiebreaks: "My best moment in the match was definitely fighting back from a loss, with the black pieces in a losing position, but at least I let it get down to seconds and then I sac'ed a piece at the right moment, whether it was good or not."

He then won again in armageddon to triumph in the match and return to the Final, just as he did in Weissenhaus last year.

Time management (or mismanagement?) was a major theme not just in the classical game but in the entire match. But GM Levon Aronian explained in the first hour of the broadcast how difficult this skill is: "The hardest thing in the game of chess, the hardest at any level, is understanding if it's a critical moment at this moment or not. And this is something that everybody struggles with." 

The hardest thing in the game of chess, the hardest at any level, is understanding if it's a critical moment at this moment or not. 

—Levon Aronian

In the classical game, Caruana chose his opening moves carefully and correctly, but his time usage was alarming. By move 13, he hadn't made any mistakes on the board, the clock situation looked promising for his younger opponent. When Caruana played 13...b5 here, he had 18 minutes against over an hour.

Sindarov had the opposite problem: he was moving too quickly in moments that were critical. With an hour on the clock, the Uzbek GM missed the winning move 16.Nd6!, winning an exchange by force. But, taking about four minutes to play 16.Ng4?, he began to drift, first allowing his opponent to sacrifice a pawn for equality. Caruana felt he was already back in the game by this point, and not long after that, the American GM won a piece. Caruana, with under 10 minutes, was on his way to pulling victory from the jaws of defeat.

Ultimately, Caruana failed to find the killer blow with less than two minutes and agreed to a threefold repetition instead—a decision that altered the course of the next several hours. He explained at the end of the match, "I had a feeling the final position was winning, a very strong feeling, I didn't see ...Ne2 of course. If I saw it, I would've probably played it and won because I think the calculations are very simple after that."

If he had more time, there's a chance he could have played what might have been the move of the tournament, 32...Ne2!!, winning. 

Rapid & Blitz Tiebreaks: Caruana Bounces Back

It was a long day ahead for the two combatants as they entered the rapid and blitz tiebreaks. Ultimately, the match would take the maximum of seven games to decide a winner.

The first rapid game was a major miss for Sindarov, who was up a clear pawn in the knight endgame. But nerves, and little time, spoiled the moment, and this time it was the younger player who'd miss his chance.

The second rapid game was an even affair, where both players handled the complications in a dynamic endgame with precision—no wins missed for either side.

The next three blitz games were decisive, and the Game Review annotations will look like a rainbow, with both sides making all kinds of mistakes. Caruana completely outplayed his younger opponent when, in time trouble, his king ran into fatal trouble. Here was the turnaround:

A game later, Caruana was dead-lost. The kind of position where White can virtually make random waiting moves and still be winning, and that's what Sindarov did for the most part. Caruana went for a speculative knight sacrifice and, with no time to process the shock and respond accurately, Sindarov went down.

That finally brought us to the bidding armageddon game, which would for sure decide a winner. Caruana won the bid for the black pieces with four minutes and 15 seconds; his opponent would have five minutes and a must-win game.

Essentially, White was unable to penetrate the defenses, and Caruana defended accurately to bring home the point, no matter what Sindaov threw at him. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes the full Game of the Day below.

Caruana is in the Final for the second year in a row, against Keymer. Asked about it right after this game, he said:

Right now, I don't want to think about it! (...) I just want to rest tonight. Of course Vincent beat Magnus, also beat Alireza...so I'm not expecting anything easy, but I hope I can get some good rest tonight and be ready tomorrow.

Firouzja 0-1 Abdusattorov 

The other three classical games started with 1.f4, and Firouzja was the only player to opt for the "best by test" 1.e4.

Like a mirror image of the previous day, it was Firouzja this time who had a completely winning attack but then drifted in time trouble. Except on the previous day, Abdusattorov's mistakes from a winning position led to a draw; in this case, Firouzja collapsed and lost.

This means that Abdusattorov advances to the match for fifth, while Firouzja at best can now finish in seventh.

Nakamura ½-½ Gukesh, 1.5-0.5 in rapid

After heartbreak in his previous match against Sindarov, where Nakamura spoiled two wins in a row and lost, the world number-two recovered with a convincing match win against the world champion.

The win didn't come without hiccups. Like in the Sindarov-Caruana classical game, Nakamura also failed to put away a winning position. Starting with 25...Nc5!, he played accurately for nine moves until he chose the wrong square for his king with 34...Kc7?. Even if Black was still better, he had already lost control, and the second classical game was a draw.

Nakamura drew the first rapid game with the white position from a position of strength and decided the match in the next game, with the black pieces. In a funny middlegame where both sides opted for a Stonewall structure, it was Gukesh who was better and winning at first, but then blundered in time pressure and lost. The decisive moment was 21.Rxf4??, played with under a minute on the clock, and this time Nakamura gave no hope of survival.

You can listen to Nakamura's thoughts about the games in the video below.

On top of attracting the world's best players and commentators, Freestyle Chess has also welcomed some of the world's most beloved streamers. WFM Anna Cramling and WFM Alexandra Botez played an exhibition match, which the Swedish master won by just one point. You can check out all the related content on your preferred streamer's channel. 

We will have a clash of generations in the top three matches on Thursday—in Caruana vs. Keymer (for first), Carlsen vs. Sindarov (for third), and Nakamura vs. Abdusattorov (for fifth). But even the match for seventh, Firouzja vs. Gukesh, is bound to be a blockbuster. Catch it on both the Chess.com and Chess24 streams!

Previous coverage:

• Weissenhaus Day 5: Keymer Beats Carlsen In Semifinal Game 1
• Weissenhaus Day 4: Sindarov Upsets Nakamura, Joins Carlsen, Caruana, Keymer In Semifinals
• Weissenhaus Day 3: Carlsen, Caruana, Keymer Win; Nakamura Lets Sindarov Escape
• Weissenhaus Day 2: Firouzja Wins Rapid As Aronian, Fedoseev Knocked Out
• Weissenhaus Day 1: Caruana, Sindarov Beat Carlsen To Lead Weissenhaus Grand Slam
• Play-In KO 2: Fedoseev Joins Carlsen & Co. In Weissenhaus After Winning Armageddon Thriller
• Play-In KO 1: Nepomniachtchi In Semifinals After Niemann Blunders Mate-In-1
• Play-In Swiss: Fedoseev, Lazavik, Sindarov, Bortnyk Keep Weissenhaus Hopes Alive
• Chess.com Officially Partners With Freestyle Chess To Support 2025 Grand Slam Tour
• $12 Million Raised For 'Revolutionary' Freestyle Series Of Tournaments