Svane, Lazavik, Pranesh And Kravtsiv Qualify For Vegas Knockout
Grandmasters Rasmus Svane, Denis Lazavik, Pranesh M, and Martyn Kravtsiv advanced from the Swiss stage to the knockouts in the hopes of reaching the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Las Vegas tournament. In tomorrow's knockout stage, they will be joined by the likes of GMs Ding Liren and Hans Niemann in a 16-player fight for the final spot in Las Vegas. Nine already announced players, including grandmasters Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, wait for them there.
Swiss Stage: Final Standings
The top four join 12 invited players in the Knockout.
Knockout Bracket
What's At Stake In The Vegas Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Play-In?
GM Vincent Keymer was the surprise $200,000 winner of the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam. Carlsen won the next leg of the tour in Paris. The third leg runs from July 16 to 20 in Las Vegas.
So far, nine of the 16 players in the field have been announced, including the two highest-rated players in the world, Carlsen and Nakamura. The nine current invitees will be joined by six yet to be announced and the winner of the Play-In.
Today's Swiss Stage gave 146 participants a chance to compete in a nine-round, 10+2 tournament.
The goal for everyone was to finish in the top four and join 12 Freestyle Chess Players Club players in a two-day knockout to earn the final spot in Las Vegas.
Early Leaders Stumble Near The Finish Line
GM Peter Svidler, a frequent Candidate and World Championship contender in the 2000s and 2010s, had the best start to the tournament, reaching a score of 5/5. In round six, he was held to a draw by Lazavik, which allowed GM Nodirbek Yakubboev to catch up with him with a 5.5/6 score. In the next round, Yakubboev took over sole first place with a convincing win against Svidler.
It looked like Yakubboev would increase his lead and guarantee a spot in the knockout in the following round, but Lazavik fought back and won a dramatic game. That was our Game of the Day, analyzed below by Rafael Leitao.
The win allowed Lazavik to draw quickly in the last round and qualify for the knockout with 7.5/9. He was joined in first place by Svane, who added to Yakubboev's misfortunes in the final round.
Pranesh M, who drew with both Svane and Lazavik along the way and didn't lose a single game, had an impressive win against the world rapid champion.
Kravtsiv recovered from an early loss to Yakubboev to grab the final knockout spot. He recovered with wins against several strong opponents, including Bogdan-Daniel Deac, Grigoriy Oparin, and Yagiz Erdogmus.
In the final round, Kravtsiv had a relatively calm draw with Svidler, which brought him fourth place. Svidler had the misfortune of just missing out, finishing in fifth place on tiebreaks.
Coming Up
In Thursday's round-of-16 of the knockout, today's four qualifiers join the 12 invited grandmasters:
- Alexey Sarana
- Maxime Vachier-Lagrave
- Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
- Vladimir Fedoseev
- Hans Niemann
- Liem Le
- Ding Liren
- Jan-Krzysztof Duda
- Vidit Gujrathi
- Yu Yangyi
- Alexander Grischuk
- Andrey Esipenko
Matches are played as two 15+3 games. If scores are still tied, players contest two 5+2 games, and then, if needed, an armageddon will game to decide the winner.
The 16-player knockout takes place on Thursday and Friday, June 19 and 20, starting at 11:00 ET / 16:00 CET / 8:30 p.m. IST.
The $750,000 3rd leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam will be played in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 16th - 20th. Participants include GMs Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Arjun Erigaisi, Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Leinier Dominguez and Parham Maghsoodloo. Six more competitors have yet to be announced and the final player will be determined by the winner of this week's knockout on Chess.com. All games are played in freestyle chess.
Previous coverage:
- Undefeated Keymer Wins Weissenhaus Knockout
- Carlsen Wins Paris Freestyle Chess Grand Slam
- Carlsen, Nakamura, Caruana Headline Star-Studded Freestyle Chess Las Vegas
