Bortnyk Ties Nakamura With 8th Freestyle Friday Victory
GM Oleksandr Bortnyk needed only nine points to win Freestyle Friday outright on May 15, good enough for his eighth Freestyle Friday victory, which tied GM Hikaru Nakamura for the most all time. GM Frederik Svane finished in sole second place on 8.5/11 after defeating his brother GM Rasmus Svane in the final round. With the win, Bortnyk moved back into a tie for first place with GM Pranav Venkatesh on the Freestyle Friday Championship leaderboard. Both top two finishers streamed the proceedings on Twitch (Bortnyk | Svane).
Through the first four rounds of play, one tournament mainstay and one more surprising name remained perfect: Bortnyk and GM Bardiya Daneshvar. When play resumed and they matched up, Bortnyk had White and didn't develop a piece until move eight. At first, it appeared he might pay the price, but he turned things around and moved to 5/5.
GMs Nodirbek Yakubboev, Sam Sevian, and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son were on 4.5/5, and it was Yakubboev whom Bortnyk faced next. The trickiness of knight endings loomed, and while Bortnyk dropped a pawn, Yakubboev could not find a winning path before the position repeated on moves 56, 66, and 70. Meanwhile, Sevian defeated Nguyen in a bishop-versus-knight ending to join Bortnyk in the lead.
Sevian then moved into the sole lead after needing just 29 moves to dispatch Bortnyk in round seven. Bortnyk's pawn push 9...f4 turned out to be ill-advised, but it took until the attempted counterattack 19...g5 was met instead by the counter-counterattack 20.Qg4 (hitting b7) before Sevian safely won a piece and gained full control.
Only Fredrik Svane was within a half-point, and the carousel continued to turn in the eighth round, with Frederik needing just 22 moves to deliver checkmate. Sevian's g1-bishop never got close to entering the game, which in turn kept him from castling, and the stranded white king was doomed sooner or later.
Sevian was still tied for second with Yakubboev, as players entered their final break. When play resumed, Svane took White against Yakubboev while Sevian with Black faced Duda. Svane maintained the sole lead by drawing with Yakubboev as Duda delivered Sevian's second consecutive defeat.
Two rounds now remained with five players chasing Frederik: Yakubboev, Duda, Bortnyk, GM Zbigniew Pakleza... and brother Rasmus. But if the tournament was to be decided in a game between siblings, there was another round yet to go; round 10 saw the matchups of Frederik with Bortnyk, Rasmus with Duda, Yakubboev with Pakleza. Frederik could not fend off Bortnyk in what ultimately became the key game to decide first place. The sacrifice 16.Nxg7!!—played by Bortnyk in just 5.8 seconds—was indeed the computer's favored attempt for White to find an advantage.
On the other two boards, Rasmus began pushing for victory as Pakleza, hoping for a Cinderella run, won again. Rasmus eventually had to win his game with Duda twice, but did prevail in the end.
In the final round, the Svane-Svane battle did indeed arrive. A draw would eliminate Frederik and cause Rasmus to need another draw in Pakleza-Bortnyk to have a chance at first. Bortnyk appeared on his way to a win, however. Then it was Frederik who had checkmate against Rasmus after the younger brother missed one of the points of his elder's 19.Ra3.
Their game concluded while Bortnyk was still pressing, but Bortnyk's exchange-up endgame was a winner soon enough, and with that came his third Freestyle Friday win of the year.
Tiebreaks decided third place, with Daneshvar working his way back to take it on eight points. Yakubboev finished fourth and IM Desyi Cori took the women's prize in 17th place.
May 15 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 14 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2688 | 9 | 73 | |
| 2 | 3 | GM | @frederiksvane | Frederik Svane | 2749 | 8.5 | 64 | |
| 3 | 18 | GM | @Bardiya06 | Bardiya Daneshvar | 2614 | 8 | 73.5 | |
| 4 | 4 | GM | @aquarium76 | Nodirbek Yakubboev | 2735 | 8 | 72.5 | |
| 5 | 1 | GM | @Polish_fighter3000 | Jan-Krzysztof Duda | 2748 | 8 | 71.5 | |
| 6 | 15 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 2640 | 8 | 61 | |
| 7 | 9 | IM | @ChessFighter_2011 | Dau Khuong Duy | 2685 | 8 | 60 | |
| 8 | 33 | GM | @Byniolus | Zbigniew Pakleza | 2499 | 8 | 56.5 | |
| 9 | 8 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 2708 | 7.5 | 74 | |
| 10 | 17 | GM | @dretch | Conrad Holt | 2613 | 7.5 | 67.5 | |
| 11 | 10 | IM | @FaustinoOro | Faustino Oro | 2659 | 7.5 | 66.5 | |
| 12 | 13 | GM | @Arseniy_Nesterov | Arseniy Nesterov | 2653 | 7.5 | 61.5 | |
| 13 | 32 | IM | @sathvikadiga | Sathvik Adiga | 2474 | 7.5 | 61 | |
| 14 | 42 | GM | @alexrustemov | Alexander Rustemov | 2425 | 7 | 60.5 | |
| 15 | 65 | FM | @LLariMarc | Marc LLari | 2435 | 7 | 59 | |
| 16 | 30 | IM | @kingnb | Nitish Belurkar | 2465 | 7 | 58 | |
| 17 | 48 | IM | @dey2580 | Deysi Cori | 2420 | 7 | 56.5 | |
| 18 | 49 | FM | @Mach1el | Mikhail Spizharny | 2410 | 7 | 53 | |
| 19 | 38 | CM | @alexboy14 | Oleksii Nakonechnyi | 2438 | 7 | 52.5 | |
| 20 | 76 | WGM | @meoluoi91 | Hoang Thi Bao Tram | 2384 | 7 | 43 | |
| 21 | 29 | IM | @Grandmaster2B | Grayson Rorrer | 2483 | 6.5 | 66.5 | |
| 22 | 41 | FM | @RoseAtwell | Rose Atwell | 2424 | 6.5 | 61.5 | |
| 23 | 78 | IM | @Vesper2018 | Anastasia Bodnaruk | 2293 | 6.5 | 59 | |
| 24 | 63 | FM | @Khazhatuly_Alikhan | Alikhan Khazhatuly | 2371 | 6.5 | 55.5 | |
| 25 | 35 | IM | @SuperGreenTea | Prin Laohawirapap | 2417 | 6.5 | 49.5 |
Prizes: Bortnyk $400, Frederik Svane $250, Daneshvar $150, Yakubboev $100, Cori $100.
Freestyle Friday is Chess.com's weekly tournament dedicated to Freestyle Chess for titled players. The tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.
Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.
