Carlsen Makes Opening Statement In 1st Freestyle Friday
Welcome to Freestyle Friday! In the inaugural edition of this event, 476 players took their shot at becoming its first champion, a very auspicious sign in what is sure to become a can't-miss part of every week for players, spectators, and Freestyle/Chess960 aficionados alike.
Several big names showed up, including the two biggest, GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen. The winner was Carlsen, who got off to the incredibly fast start of nine points out of nine. In the end, he scored 9.5 points, finishing ahead of GM Oleksandr Bortnyk on tiebreaks after Bortnyk scored the upset in the final round.
Lots of familiar faces at the top!
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Magnus, Hikaru, Fabi, Hans, and more all start the first Freestyle Friday with 5 wins in a row! 🥶 Who do you think wins the inaugural event? pic.twitter.com/54iNCUQjqa
After six rounds, four players were still perfect: Nakamura, Carlsen, GM Hans Niemann, and GM Haik Martirosyan, and we instantly got the always-anticipated Nakamura-Carlsen matchup. Today it started with one of Freestyle's most aesthetic arrangements and ended with Nakamura dropping a piece, his outside passed pawn providing insufficient compensation. He could have tried getting Carlsen to need to checkmate with bishop and knight, but soon realized that was a pipe dream.
At the same time, Niemann defeated Martirosyan, setting up a contest with Carlsen. Yes, in the very first Freestyle Friday, we got perhaps the two juiciest matchups in chess today, Carlsen–Nakamura and Carlsen–Niemann. But Niemann stumbled early and Carlsen never let go of the advantage.
Carlsen would then improve to 9/9 with a win over GM Ian Nepomniachtchi, threatening to set an unbreakable record of perfection in the very first edition of this tournament. In the 10th round, however, he was finally held to a draw, by GM Denis Lazavik. The draw was still good enough to retain a full-point lead on the field, and so a draw in the final round was all Carlsen would need to lock up the event.
But then things got messy. Carlsen took on Bortnyk and fell into a nasty position, both on the board and on the clock. Thinking he'd won a piece, Carlsen instead had to give up his queen to avoid checkmate. Down a minute at one point, Carlsen worked the clock back to more even... but not the position.
Fortunately for Carlsen, his 9/9 start and the performance of his opposition gave him the best tiebreaks anyway. Nakamura held onto third place with GM Liem Le finishing fourth, while IM Meri Arabidze scored seven points to take home the first Freestyle Friday women's prize.
January 24 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 20)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | Tiebreak |
| 1 | 6 | GM | @MagnusCarlsen | Magnus Carlsen | 2919 | 9.5 | 77 | |
| 2 | 11 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2866 | 9.5 | 71.5 | |
| 3 | 3 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 2942 | 9 | 78.5 | |
| 4 | 13 | GM | @LiemLe | Liem Le | 2828 | 9 | 75 | |
| 5 | 5 | GM | @HansOnTwitch | Hans Niemann | 2916 | 9 | 75 | |
| 6 | 2 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 2955 | 9 | 73 | |
| 7 | 43 | GM | @Micki-taryan | Haik Martirosyan | 2670 | 9 | 71 | |
| 8 | 28 | GM | @Msb2 | Matthias Bluebaum | 2692 | 9 | 70 | |
| 9 | 9 | GM | @DenLaz | Denis Lazavik | 2870 | 8.5 | 72.5 | |
| 10 | 94 | GM | @MetiForce | Mahdi Gholami Orimi | 2367 | 8.5 | 72 | |
| 11 | 42 | GM | @Indianlad | S.L. Narayanan | 2635 | 8.5 | 71 | |
| 12 | 12 | GM | @DanielNaroditsky | Daniel Naroditsky | 2823 | 8.5 | 70.5 | |
| 13 | 99 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 2361 | 8.5 | 68.5 | |
| 14 | 292 | GM | @DrVelja | Velimir Ivic | 1635 | 8.5 | 64.5 | |
| 15 | 39 | GM | @Muisback26 | Rauf Mamedov | 2628 | 8.5 | 64 | |
| 16 | 20 | GM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2730 | 8 | 72.5 | |
| 17 | 30 | GM | @FabianoCaruana | Fabiano Caruana | 2677 | 8 | 71.5 | |
| 18 | 8 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 2856 | 8 | 69 | |
| 19 | 22 | GM | @Tartody | David Lariño Nieto | 2704 | 8 | 69 | |
| 20 | 125 | FM | @SaqoChess_Coach | Sargis Manukyan | 2187 | 8 | 67.5 | |
| 56 | 98 | IM | @Meri-Arabidze | Meri Arabidze | 2256 | 7 | 58 |
Prizes: Carlsen $400, Bortnyk $250, Nakamura $150, Le $100, Arabidze $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.
