Keymer Conquers Carlsen, Wins Freestyle Friday On Tiebreaks

GM Vincent Keymer rode his 10th-round victory over GM Magnus Carlsen in Freestyle Friday to a win in the tournament on February 6. Both players scored nine points but Keymer's tiebreaks put him in the lead. Keymer previously won on May 2, 2025, and this time denied Carlsen the chance of becoming the first player to win a second Freestyle Friday in 2026.

Even though Carlsen had led the tournament before the fateful 10th round, he needed to fight hard to get there after dropping a game in round two against IM Rohith Krishna. It was another of those Freestyle-only opening blunders; here on move seven, when Carlsen allowed Rohith's 7...Qa3! forking Carlsen's a7-knight and c1-rook. Carlsen then finished off the game with a Botez Gambit.

Keymer, meanwhile, started 4/4 before draws in back-to-back rounds. At that point, it was GM Zhamsaran Tsydypov, who made noise earlier this week in Titled Tuesday, who led the tournament with 5.5 points through six rounds, while Keymer and Carlsen were in a mass of players on 5/6.

And it was Carlsen who defeated Tsydypov in the seventh round, surviving a difficult spot before eventually going up three pawns in the endgame.

Four players now shared the lead, but Carlsen was the only one to keep winning in rounds eight and nine, putting him two rounds away from an outright victory—before Keymer had something to say about it. Carlsen let Keymer uglify his pawns early, but was able to liquidate them into an even ending. That did not last, however, with Carlsen losing a pawn, and briefly two, which was enough for Keymer to get an easily convertible rook ending, although Carlsen did resign several moves before weaker players might have.

GM Sam Sevian would join Carlsen and Keymer on 8/10, which also prevented Tsydypov from reaching an 8.5/10 score that would have put him back in the outright tournament lead. That game featured yet another early turn of the tide.

With first place in the balance, the last round pitted Carlsen with Black against GM Jeffery Xiong and Keymer with White against Sevian. Although the engine evaluation was not yet huge, Carlsen was up a pawn and winning when time expired on Xiong's clock.

Moments later, a much more significant advantage for Keymer, with imminent promotion and almost-as-imminent checkmate, induced Sevian's resignation. Ultimately, in head-to-head and in the actual tiebreaks, Keymer's nine points won out for first place over Carlsen's nine.

Prep for Weissenhaus😃#FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/QxDlEbrSYi

— Vincent Keymer (@VincentKeymer04) February 6, 2026

Well before either of those games finished, Tsydypov had crunched GM Oleksandr Bortnyk in 21 moves—after Bortnyk had missed a pre-10th-move opportunity the likes of which Rohith and Sevian converted. That ultimately brought Tsydypov sole third place.

Despite his loss, Sevian was able to finish fourth ahead of GMs Sina Movahed and Luca Moroni on tiebreaks, while IM Mai Narva started with 6.5/8 and rode that start to 23rd place and the top women's spot.

February 6 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)

(Full final standings.)

Prizes: Keymer $400, Carlsen $250, Tsydypov $150, Sevian $100, Narva $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.