Vidit, Rapport, Mamedov, Tabatabaei Fight For Final Spot In Paris
It's GM Vidit Gujrathi vs. GM Amin Tabatabaei and GM Rauf Mamedov vs. GM Richard Rapport in Friday's Semifinals of the 2025 Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In after a brutal two rounds of knockout chess. 12 players were eliminated from the fight to qualify for the final spot in Paris, including GMs Ding Liren, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Wei Yi, Levon Aronian, and Jan-Krzysztof Duda.
The Semifinals start Friday, March 14, at 11:00 ET / 16:00 CET / 8:30 p.m. IST.
Knockout Bracket: Round of 16 and Quarterfinals
Just four out of 16 players survived five hours of action on Thursday. Let's look at their quarterfinal wins and how they got there.
Vidit 1.5-0.5 Pranesh
18-year-old GM Pranesh M has been the revelation of the Play-In, and the Indian GM only enhanced his reputation by knocking out world number-six Abdusattorov in the Round of 16. Time and again we saw sparkling tactics, including Pranesh finding 28...Nd5! to refute his Uzbek rival's combination in the second 15-minute game.
The players then traded wins in 5+2 blitz before bidding almost exactly the same time for armageddon. Pranesh won with a bid of four minutes 24 seconds, to Abdusattorov's four minutes 25 seconds, and got the black pieces. Needing only a draw he nevertheless built up a winning position before taking the draw and match victory. "He's definitely sharper than a lot of super-GMs," said GM David Howell, when asked if Pranesh can become another Indian superstar.
He's definitely sharper than a lot of super-GMs.
—David Howell on Pranesh M
To reach the Quarterfinals, Vidit had to beat none other than the 17th World Champion Ding. The players share a birthday, October 24, but it was the two-years-younger Vidit who would dominate. Ding had to dig deep to make a draw in the first game, while in the second Ding castled into the knight fork 10...Nd2 and never recovered.
The all-Indian Quarterfinal initially looked to start well for Pranesh, but he got his knights tangled on the side of the board, and when Vidit took over he went on to win in brutal style.
This time there was no way back for Pranesh, as Vidit made a draw from a position of strength to clinch a Semifinal against Tabatabaei.
Tabatabaei 1.5-0.5 Dominguez
Tabatabaei won the Swiss qualifier the previous day, and he carried that form into the Round of 16, winning the first game against Aronian convincingly. It seemed as though the U.S.-Armenian star would hit back, but one rash pawn grab and Tabatabaei never gave a second chance as he clinched a 2-0 victory.
GM Leinier Dominguez, meanwhile, did what few have managed recently and tamed GM Javokhir Sindarov in Freestyle Chess. Again the scoreline was 2-0, though that was partly because Sindarov kept fighting on to checkmate instead of accepting a draw by perpetual check in the second game.
The Quarterfinal clash of the winners featured both players sacrificing a pawn on move one.
The first game was ultimately a quiet draw, but the second was explosive. Despite the dubious first move, Tabatabaei took over, with 15...Bxe5! a powerful sacrifice.
It wasn't all one-way traffic, however, since Dominguez could have turned the tables with 26.Bc3!, but with eight seconds on his clock he missed the chance and sank to a painful loss. At the end he got up without resigning, but with only seconds left on his clock it made no difference.
Dominguez lets his time run out as Tabatabaei wins a wild game to reach the Semifinals! #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/qBiP5a84vm
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 13, 2025
The third quarterfinal also featured a player who had battled through the Swiss the day before.
Mamedov 1.5-0.5 Le
Mamedov sometimes rode his luck to stay unbeaten through the nine-round Swiss on Wednesday, but his play on Thursday was simply brilliant. Most impressive, perhaps, was that he was willing to trade wild tactics with a player as tactically gifted as world number-seven Wei Yi.
He clinched that match 2-0, though not without giving Wei some chances in a remarkable position with four pieces for a queen in the second game.
GM Liem Le, meanwhile, had a much tougher time against GM Yu Yangyi. He made an uncharacteristic one-move blunder in the first game, came back from a lost position to win the second, got lucky when Yu lost on time in a roughly equal position in game three, then seemed on the brink of being taken to armageddon.
Yu's follow-up to the sacrifice was flawed, however, and then he couldn't squeeze out a win in an endgame that ended only on move 130.
After that drama Le perhaps needed the quiet first game of their quarterfinal, but there was nothing quiet about the second. Le's breaking in the center only helped Black, and when Mamedov correctly grabbed a "poisoned" pawn on e5 the writing was on the wall. Mamedov finished things off perfectly.
Mamedov will now face Rapport in the Semifinals.
Rapport 2-0 Duda
Rapport's success was achieved by playing in his trademark creative style, even if it meant sacrificing a pawn against Duda on move seven and ending up in a lost position by move 10. Duda was lured into playing as creatively, but it backfired badly.
Duda never came close to bouncing back in the second game.
Mamedyarov, meanwhile, needed an armageddon win with the white pieces to end the resistance of GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, who once again showed all the skills that had seen him qualify from the Swiss the day before.
Mamedyarov then looked sure to take the lead against Rapport in the Quarterfinals. Even when he swapped off queens after a powerful attack his advantage remained crushing. Exchanging off rooks slightly diminished his edge, however, before swapping off his bishop left the position almost equal. The Azerbaijan star's position was still for choice, but as he attempted to squeeze out a win a chess tragedy unfolded, and somehow Rapport went on to win!
Richard Rapport pulls off a miracle win in a game he looked certain to lose to Shakhriyar Mamedyarov! https://t.co/6xg5fK2uIZ#FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/YoQowyDx7a
— chess24 (@chess24com) March 13, 2025
It was understandable Mamedyarov was unable to come back from that disaster, and he found himself on the ropes as early as 9...Bh3! from Rapport. The outcome of the game never felt in doubt, with Mamedyarov resigning a move before checkmate.
That means that only four players remain in the running to clinch the final spot in the Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam alongside GMs Magnus Carlsen, Gukesh Dommaraju and co.
That's not quite all, however, since the remaining four quarterfinalists will still compete for 5th to 8th places and extra prize money.
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:
- Play-In Swiss: Tabatabaei, Nguyen, Mamedov, Pranesh In Hunt For Paris Freestyle Chess Spot
- 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.
