Tabatabaei, Nguyen, Mamedov, Pranesh In Hunt For Paris Freestyle Chess Spot
GMs Amin Tabatabaei, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, Rauf Mamedov, and Pranesh M scored 7.5/9 to finish in the top-four and qualify for the Knockout Stage of the 2025 Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In. They'll be joined by the likes of GMs Ding Liren and Nodirbek Abdusattorov in a 16-player battle for the final spot in Paris, where 11 players, including World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju and GM Magnus Carlsen await.
The 16-player Knockout takes place on Thursday-Friday, March 13-14, starting at 11:00 ET / 16:00 CET / 8:30 p.m. IST.
Swiss Stage: Final Standings
The top-four join 12 invited players in the Knockout.
Knockout Bracket
- What's At Stake In The Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In?
- Tabatabaei Tops Table As 4 Qualify For Knockout
- Jumabayev, Grischuk, Sevian Miss Out
What's At Stake In The Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In?
GM Vincent Keymer was the surprise $200,000 winner of the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, the first of five Grand Slams on the Tour. The action now switches to Paris, France on April 7-14.
The field has grown to 12 players, with the announced line-up a who's who of world chess, including the world top-five.
As you can see, there's just one more player to be decided, and that's what this week on Chess.com is about. Two Open Qualifiers at the weekend (one, two) gave a chance for any player to qualify for today's Swiss Stage for titled players, where over 200 participants battled it out in a nine-round, 10-minute plus two-second-increment Swiss tournament.
The goal was to finish in the top-four and join 12 Freestyle Chess Players Club players in a two-day Knockout to determine the final spot in Paris.
A change this time round is that there's a separate $50,000 prize fund for the Play-In, with $10,000 for the winner and $9,000 for the runner-up, down to $500 for players finishing ninth-16th.
Tabatabaei Tops Table As 4 Qualify For Knockout
The leader of the Swiss from start to finish was Iranian GM Tabatabaei, who stormed into the sole lead on 7/7, before admitting he got nervous in the penultimate round and was glad his opponent took a draw.
Tabatabaei summed up, after he still finished top despite a last-round loss:
"I feel great! Honestly I didn’t expect it to go that smoothly. For the last round I was a bit too chilled—I knew that regardless of the result I’m going to qualify due to the tiebreaks."
Tabatabaei said a recent second place in Freestyle Friday "gave me some confidence that maybe I’m decent at it," and that he would welcome freestyle chess (Chess960) taking over, since "it’s becoming extremely boring repeating the same lines, memorizing the same lines, so it’s a very new and fresh start."
When asked about his games, Tabatabaei mentioned the "really crazy" second one against GM Alexander Rustemov, which was a wild ride after the correct sacrifice 17.Bxc5!!.
Tabatabaei now plays GM Levon Aronian, whom he described as "his mentor" and "an awesome guy," in the Knockout Stage, adding, "Playing against him, such a legend, is a great experience, obviously!"
Second place was taken by Vietnam's Nguyen, who tricked GM Parham Maghsoodloo in an endgame in the final round. That made up for his one loss, where he missed a win against Mamedov.
Mamedov, who recently became the champion of Azerbaijan after provoking blunders from both GMs Teimour Radjabov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, qualified for the Knockout as the only unbeaten player to have played all nine rounds.
There was one more slice of good fortune, since in the final round a one-move blunder almost cost him dearly. GM Alexander Grischuk would have taken the spot if he'd found the knight fork 23...Ne2+.
The final spot was taken by 18-year-old Indian talent Pranesh, who beat Tabatabaei in the final round. The truly remarkable game, however, was in the penultimate round, when he took down GM Raunak Sadhwani after spotting a mistake on move two!
When you threaten smothered checkmate on move 2! 🤯 https://t.co/U0HNC1wu28 pic.twitter.com/o1joleR5qY
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 12, 2025
Such alertness helped Pranesh finish second, to GM Arjun Erigaisi, in the most recent Freestyle Friday, and while Raunak did fight his way back into the game, the win was deserved.
Of course there were players who narrowly missed out.
Jumabayev, Grischuk, Sevian Miss Out
Among the players who finished only half a point back were Grischuk, whose missed knight-fork in the final round we've already seen, and GM Sam Sevian, who won seven games but couldn't quite make up for a howler in the first round. In a won position against 11-year-old FM Sergey Sklokin, he suddenly sacrificed a rook on a2 before putting the pawn on h7.
The most unfortunate player, however, was GM Rinat Jumabayev, who conceded only one draw and needed just eight rounds to match the other leaders.
As we saw in the 2024 World Blitz Championship, however, a forfeit loss, such as GM Daniil Dubov's for "oversleeping" his clash with GM Hans Niemann, wreaks havoc on tiebreaks. Back then Dubov would have qualified for the Knockout if he'd simply played and lost, and it was the same for Jumabayev, who had missed round one and missed out on a Knockout spot.
In Thursday's Round of 16 we'll see Abdusattorov vs. Pranesh, Aronian vs. Tabatabaei, Mamedov vs. GM Wei Yi, Mamedyarov vs. Nguyen, Ding vs. GM Vidit Gujrathi, GM Leinier Dominguez vs. GM Javokhir Sindarov, GM Liem Le vs. GM Yu Yangyi, and GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs. GM Richard Rapport.
Matches are played as two 15+3 games followed, if scores are still tied, by two 5+2 games and then, if needed, armageddon.
The $750,000 2nd leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam will be played in Paris, France, on April 7-14. 11 players, including GMs Gukesh Dommaraju, Magnus Carlsen, and Hikaru Nakamura have already been invited, while the remaining spot will be decided in a Play-In on Chess.com on March 8-14. 12 players move straight to a 16-player Knockout with two-game 15+3 matches, while the last four players qualify from a nine-round Swiss Open played at a 10+2 time control. All games are played in freestyle chess.
Previous coverage:
- Niemann Given Surprise Paris Freestyle Wildcard, Set To Face Carlsen
- Undefeated Keymer Wins Weissenhaus Knockout
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.
