Carlsen Wins Clutch Chess With 2 Games To Spare
GM Magnus Carlsen won the 2025 Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown with two games to spare. He defeated World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju two times, and then beat GM Fabiano Caruana twice, to win the event and earn the $120,000 first prize, all before his final match against GM Hikaru Nakamura.
He made two draws against Nakamura and earned another $50,000 bonus in the end, for a total of $170,000 in three days. Caruana finished second, Nakamura third, and Gukesh fourth.
Final Standings
After two days of dissatisfaction with his play, Carlsen was finally "a lot happier" with his performance on day three. He explained, "There are still things here and there that I'm not super happy about, but there was more flow and I felt that I was more on top of things, and not missing as many tricks."
He won his first four games, and the tournament format rewarded him tremendously, as he earned three points for every win. His first victim was the world champion, whom he beat two times again (as he did on day two). In the tournament overall, he beat Gukesh five times and drew him once.
Carlsen won game one on the black side of a Ruy Lopez. The commentators were critical of the world champion's 19.d5, after which Black had a comfortable game, even if he wasn't yet better. Carlsen gradually outplayed him strategically, and said, "This one was just very, very clean, and he didn't really get any real chances."
And, at one point, he admitted he thought of how he spoiled a win and lost in Norway Chess 2025 (the table slam game) and told himself, "If I blow this one, then I don't know what to do." No such thing occurred.
Game two featured an erroenous pawn push, reminiscent of yesterday's 27...e5? (which Gukesh criticized as "impulsive"). The world champion's 24...f5? in this case allowed a rook incursion to e6, and the black position quickly collapsed.
The second match, against Caruana, "was somewhat effected by the fact that he really had to win," Carlsen explained. "So in the first game of course he plays an opening that is maybe not the choice he would normally play," a Sicilian Accelerated Dragon.
Caruana admitted as much in his interview, saying that after four tournaments in a row he'd arrived exhausted, "I couldn't bring myself to look at chess." Besides the first game of the event, he hadn't prepared at all, and said of this game, "I just over-the-board thought, why not to play the Maroczy?" He went on:
I think it was going fine, it was kind of equalish, I think he was just in very good shape today and he played a very good game. I mean, it got slightly unpleasant at some point, maybe after I played e6, I thought, okay, it should just be a draw, and then Rc6 comes and it starts to get quite unpleasant."
It was a vintage Magnus squeeze in the endgame, which GM Rafael Leitao analyzes below.
Carlsen won again, this time from the black side, and clinched the tournament in game two against Caruana. There, 18...b5! was the critical moment when he started to take over. He ultimately won the exchange and converted the endgame.
Carlsen explained that the format of the event helped him, saying, "In the second game as well I think he was kind of rejecting continuations that would lead to sort of more drawish positions, but that's of course part of the game, but it ends up inflating my score just a tiny bit."
Carlsen's final score against Caruana was three wins, one draw, and two losses. What changed between day two and three? He answered with a bit of an understatement, "When I feel good and I'm rested, I'm usually playing quite well." Anyway, he ended the tournament on a "satisfied" note, casually dropping that "I'm still quite a bit better than the others."
"It is really satisfying to be able to show that, when I'm playing well, I'm still quite a bit better than the others."
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 29, 2025
- Magnus Carlsen pic.twitter.com/xJ6Hbl830i
Carlsen went on to draw Nakamura twice, though it wasn't for a lack of trying to win. He sacrificed two pawns in the opening of game one and later declined a threefold repetition, but the game still ended in a draw. Then in game two, he managed to equalize cleanly with Black, but with no real winning chances. More on this game later.
Against Nakamura overall, Carlsen won two, drew three, and lost one.
With another $170,000 in winnings, Carlsen has made over a million in prizes alone this year.
Caruana finished second, nine points behind Carlsen, though even he wasn't expecting to finish so well. He said, "I don't even understand how I got second. The system is weird, I scored -1 if you think about it."
He drew Nakamura in game one and won in game two, lost two against Carlsen, and drew Gukesh twice. That one win was probably the most exhilarating time scramble of the day, and the clip of the live action does the game more justice than a bunch of question marks on a 2D board. The result was completely unpredictable, but one thing was quite clear: it wouldn't end in a draw.
Caruana wins an incredible back-and-forth endgame against Nakamura to stay on Carlsen's heels! Carlsen leads by 3 points.https://t.co/DGcy0b5xUh pic.twitter.com/vnrdKSsUzL
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 29, 2025
Nakamura came in third, but was level-headed about it in the interview. He called the result "a very mixed bag for me," continuing:
I had some very good moments, but there were also some really bad moments. So it was very mixed. The result overall, I wouldn't say I'm happy with it, but considering what I felt was not my best play, the difference between third and second place was the one against Fabiano. Overall, it's a decent performance, but not what I was hoping for.
Besides the draw and loss against Caruana, Nakamura scored a draw and win against Gukesh, and two draws against Carlsen. Curiously, if he had won the last game against Carlsen with White, he would have finished in second.
Instead of focusing on winning at all costs, Nakamura explained it was more important for him to pay homage to the late GM Daniel Naroditsky by playing 4.Nd5 in the Four Knights Opening, a move Danya played several months ago in the Champions Chess Tour. He'd also played it earlier in this tournament against Gukesh; Carlsen knew how to equalize, and neither player got any chances.
Nakamura also pointed out that with Black against 1.e4 he responded with the Hyperaccelerated Dragon, another tribute to Naroditsky.
His main goal next is to play five more games to meet the requirement of 40 games for the 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament, and also to play in the Global Chess League in December. You can listen to Nakamura's video recap of the day below.
Gukesh, who led the tournament after day one, didn't manage to win another game in the subsequent days. He explained:
At some point it was very tough to start getting wins and when it's like that against this opposition, it usually goes downhill quite fast. But overall it was a great experience, especially before the World Cup. There are no better training partners than these three! The good thing is these three won't be there.
The world champion won't have to wait long to make use of this warmup. The World Cup begins this Saturday, though as one of the top 50 players, Gukesh gets a bye and only starts the event in round two.
How to review?
You can review 2025 Clutch Chess Champions Showdown on the Saint Louis Chess Club YouTube Channel. You can also review the games on our dedicated Events Page. You can also catch videos of the event on GM Hikaru Nakamura's Kick or Twitch pages.
The live broadcast was hosted by GMs Yasser Seirawan, Maurice Ashley, and James Dash.
Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown, taking place from October 27-30 in St. Louis, is a rapid event featuring the world's top-three players and World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. It is a nine-round, 18-game tournament consisting of three double round-robins played with time control of 10+5. Players progressively earn more points in each round-robin; one point for a win in round-robin one, two in round-robin two, and three in round-robin three. The prize fund is $412,000.
