Terry Freestyles Way To Third Friday Victory As Bortnyk Holds Championship Lead
IM Renato Terry won Freestyle Friday on February 27, the second week of the Freestyle Friday Championship, with a 9.5/11 score. Last week's winner GM Oleksandr Bortnyk finished second on 8.5/11, giving him a commanding early lead on the Championship leaderboard with 17 standings points to Terry's 10. GM Alexandra Kosteniuk once again won the women's prize, giving her 20 points on the early leaderboard, 12 ahead of second-place GM Anna Muzychuk.
After five rounds, no grandmaster was still on 100%, but Terry and FM Artin Ashraf were. Ashraf went on to become the only player on 6/6 with his win over Terry, who remained tied for second, where he was joined by GMs Cristobal Henriquez, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, and Mahdi Gholami Orimi.
It would remain Terry's only loss of the tournament, and he quickly rejoined a share of the lead after Nguyen took down Ashraf in round seven. Both Nguyen and Ashraf were under 10 seconds on their clocks by move 30, with a lot of pieces still on board as well. It was Nguyen who handled the next 30 moves better, although Ashraf had a fleeting chance on move 48.
In the eighth round, Ashraf faced Orimi and Terry faced Nguyen, all four of them entering on six points. Ashraf and Terry would go on to win rather uncompetitive games, and they once again become the only two players in first place, this time on 7/8.
Of course, having already faced off once, they couldn't play each other again. CM Maxim Borisov, the only player on 6.5/8, played against Terry, while Ashraf was paired against Bortnyk on just 6/8. Terry took sole lead with his win, while Bortnyk took down Ashraf to move into a tie for second on 7/9 with his third straight victory. Bortnyk played with nearly 98% accuracy and only need 19 moves to pull it off the win.
In the penultimate 10th round, Terry had a chance to make things easier on himself, but repeated the position against Bortnyk when the computer thought he should continue. Terry remained a full point ahead of Bortnyk with the result, but Ashraf defeated Mahdavi and Orimi defeated Kostenuk to both get within half a point.
Terry's assignment in the 11th round to protect his lead was FM Rustam Rustamov. Terry handled the clinching game with ease, winning in 36 moves and never in trouble.
On the next two boards, the lower-ranked players won. Bortnyk faced some difficulties against Orimi, but ended up turning things around and Henriquez took two rooks and four pawns and defeated Ashraf's queen and two pawns in an ending. The result gave Bortnyk sole second, but wasn't enough to pull Henriquez ahead of either Ashraf or Orimi in the standings.
February 27 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 3 | IM | MITerryble | Renato Terry | 2705 | 9.5 | 69 | |
| 2 | 1 | GM | Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2754 | 8.5 | 68 | |
| 3 | 9 | FM | artin10862 | Artin Ashraf | 2653 | 8 | 70.5 | |
| 4 | 17 | GM | MetiForce | Mahdi Gholami Orimi | 2562 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 5 | 13 | GM | HVillagra | Cristobal Henriquez | 2584 | 8 | 64.5 | |
| 6 | 22 | IM | Gianmarco_es | Gianmarco Leiva | 2513 | 8 | 61 | |
| 7 | 6 | GM | Shield12 | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 2638 | 7.5 | 62 | |
| 8 | 5 | GM | amintabatabaei | Amin Tabatabaei | 2637 | 7.5 | 58.5 | |
| 9 | 18 | GM | Anton_Demchenko | Anton Demchenko | 2529 | 7.5 | 52.5 | |
| 10 | 14 | GM | eljanov | Pavel Eljanov | 2548 | 7.5 | 51 | |
| 11 | 15 | FM | ilqar_74 | Rustam Rustamov | 2553 | 7 | 63.5 | |
| 12 | 26 | IM | SahibSinghKnight | Sahib Singh | 2461 | 7 | 61.5 | |
| 13 | 83 | CM | rostovmaxim | Maxim Borisov | 2168 | 7 | 61.5 | |
| 14 | 27 | IM | kingnb | Nitish Belurkar | 2469 | 7 | 61 | |
| 15 | 23 | </span | GM | ChessQueen | Alexandra Kosteniuk | 2481 | 6.5 | 69.5 |
| 16 | 32 | GM | alexrustemov | Alexander Rustemov | 2424 | 6.5 | 63 | |
| 17 | 57 | NM | laiditmang05_ducminh | Duc Minh Lai | 2317 | 6.5 | 54 | |
| 18 | 29 | CM | reymannnathan | Nathan Reymann | 2403 | 6.5 | 52 | |
| 19 | 1 | CM | RebelJohnny | Amir Ali Ghafourian | 2363 | 6.5 | 48 | |
| 20 | 52 | IM | karinachess1 | Karina Ambartsumova | 2304 | 6.5 | 41.5 | |
| 21 | 2 | GM | mishanick | Aleksei Sarana | 2694 | 6 | 71 | |
| 22 | 7 | GM | crescentmoon2411 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | 2632 | 6 | 59.5 | |
| 23 | 61 | WIM | crazy_m_attack | Melika Mohammadi | 2288 | 6 | 55 | |
| 24 | 65 | IM | ural58 | Alexander Reprintsev | 2209 | 6 | 51 | |
| 25 | 53 | FM | wunderkind2011 | Javohir Bozorov | 2284 | 6 | 50 |
Prizes: Terry $400, Bortnyk $250, Ashraf $150, Orimi $100, Kosteniuk $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.
