GMs Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov lead the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam on 4.5/5 on a day when both took down GM Magnus Carlsen. The defending champion also lost to GM Vladimir Fedoseev, but scored two wins to join the likes of World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju and GM Hikaru Nakamura on a perilous 2/5. Two of the 10 players will be eliminated on Saturday, with Fedoseev and GM Levon Aronian currently occupying last place on 1/5.
Day two of the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam begins on Saturday, February 8, at 7 a.m. ET / 13:00 CET / 5:30 p.m. IST.
The 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour Begins
Today, in Germany, it finally began, after months dominated not by chess but a feud with the International Chess Federation (FIDE) about the potential crowning of a world champion.
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is a series of five events that first returns to where it began a year ago, with a Carlsen victory—the German Baltic sea luxury resort of Weissenhaus. Then France, the U.S., India, and South Africa await.
The first leg has a $750,000 prize fund, with the 10 players (there will be 12 for future events) competing for a $200,000 top prize, the right to play in the next event, and points toward the overall title.
The top-three from the previous event were invited (Carlsen, Caruana, Aronian), three players by rating (GMs Nakamura, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, and Alireza Firouzja), Gukesh as World Champion, GM Vincent Keymer as a local wildcard, while Fedoseev earned his spot by winning the qualifier on Chess.com. Sindarov was the player Fedoseev beat in the final, but also got a spot in the end after GM Viswanathan Anand, who had been given a wildcard, dropped out.
The main novelty that Carlsen persuaded Freestyle Chess founder Jan Henric Buettner to invest in was playing freestyle chess (or Chess960), but not in rapid but classical time controls (90 minutes per player, with 30 seconds added per move), giving players the time to really think about the new positions.
We’ll see that in the main event, an eight-player, six-day knockout, when each match consists of two classical games followed, if needed, by rapid and blitz tiebreaks. Before that begins on Sunday, however, the 10 players must be reduced to eight!
That’s done by a 10-player rapid round-robin on the first two days, where the players have 10 minutes per game, and a 10-second increment per move. There were five rounds on Friday, we’ll have four on Saturday, and then the bottom two will be eliminated—with a playoff if players are tied.
It also helps to finish near the top of the eight, since the winner of the Round-Robin will get to pick his quarterfinal opponent, before the second and third-placed players get to make their choices in turn.
The details may sound tricky, but some of the best communicators in chess are on hand to take us through the action!
Legendary commentary room pic.twitter.com/BPmX8VLvJw
— GothamChess (@GothamChess) February 7, 2025
Caruana And Sindarov Dominate Day 1
Caruana and Sindarov have almost certainly already booked their places in the Knockout, after both scoring a crushing 4.5/5.
The fact that they had the same color each round meant that they got to work together, with the players having a few minutes to study the position that had been drawn out of the 959 possible arrangements on the back rank—the players agreed the 960th, normal chess, shouldn’t count, but also decided the same position with king and queen swapped should stay as an option!
“Fabiano helps a lot for us—he was understanding this chess incredibly!” said Sindarov about their working together, while Caruana was happy for the change of pace after losing his last two games in Wijk aan Zee:
My preparation was playing absolutely horribly in my last event two days before this one, but I was happy to get a change, just something very different from traditional classical chess, long time control and the standard preparing four hours before a game, and preparation for this event is just playing some rapid games.
My preparation was playing absolutely horribly in my last event.
—Fabiano Caruana
One stand-out success for both players was beating the defending champion, Carlsen. In Caruana’s case, it was an example of just how tough Chess960 can be, with 7…e5? running into 8.e4!!.
If Black captures the bishop, then after white captures the d5-pawn, the black queen is suddenly trapped on e8. Carlsen tried to limit the damage, but his 2018 world championship opponent smoothly brought the game to its logical conclusion.
Carlsen never recovered from his opening mistake and Caruana storms to 2/2! #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/5Ldl9Biq8W
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 7, 2025
If that was all about one mistake, Sindarov’s win over Carlsen was utterly convincing, and is our Game of the Day, with analysis by GM Rafael Leitao below.
Sindarov understandably described himself as “very happy,” and revealed it was his first time ever playing the world number-one over-the-board and not online. He explained he’d managed to do something that’s easier said than done: “It was a little bit hard to play against Magnus, but I tried to play just against pieces, not against Magnus!”
I tried to play just against pieces, not against Magnus!
—Javokhir Sindarov
SIndarov credited his success on winning the first game from “an absolutely drawn position” after Keymer overpressed for a win, and correctly noted things could have gone even better, since he was winning against Gukesh before conceding his only draw.
The player who came closest to challenging the top duo was Firouzja, who was level on 2.5/3 with Caruana when they played an extraordinary round-four game. Even the initial position was remarkable, since the U.S. Chess Champion said he was fairly sure he’d had the same position in a training game against his second GM Miguel Santos Ruiz in the morning!
While Caruana did well up to a point, he admitted Firouzja’s wild counterattack was “terrifying.” With some tuning it might have worked, but as it was, Caruana found the one path to survive, and win!
What it’s actually like to be at an elite chess tournament #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/wf3SW7wMcF
— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 7, 2025
Firoujza ended the day on a healthy 3.5/5, while Abdusattorov, on 2.5, was the only other player not to end the day on a minus score. That was some reward for the huge and obvious desire he showed already in the first game, when he played on against Gukesh with a bare two knights—which can only give checkmate with a huge helping hand from your opponent.
When you try to checkmate the world champion with 2 knights! #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/DVLQLSpFLR
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 7, 2025
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen this played out,” said GM Peter Leko, while GM Judit Polgar instantly responded, “Can I say, I hope it’s the last!”
Abdusattorov’s eventful day saw him miss a chance against Nakamura in round two, narrowly escape against Caruana in round three, lose a winning position to Keymer in round four, but finally get rewarded with a beautiful suffocation of Fedoseev’s king in the last round of the day. The final position is zugzwang, with the black pieces unable to move without allowing checkmate or the loss of the queen.
For the majority of players, meanwhile, finishing in the last two spots and getting eliminated early is a very real possibility.
Carlsen, Gukesh, Nakamura Among Players In Danger
The players currently in the dropzone only have one point—Aronian, who made two draws after his day started with a move-13 blunder against Firouzja, and Fedoseev, who lost four games but did get to beat Carlsen. Leko, commentating, was sure the world number-one must have decided to give up his queen on move nine, but no, it soon turned out it was just a blunder!
Leko says Carlsen’s 8…0-0? “invites” 9.Nb2! from Fedoseev.
Polgar: “Is he inviting or blundering?”
From Magnus’ reaction we see it was the 2nd! #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/UNRhZ4pIw5
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 7, 2025
Carlsen would end the day in the four-player pack on 2/5, since the three losses we’ve seen were balanced out by two wins against two more players on the same score, Keymer, and Nakamura.
The game of the world numbers one and two kicked off the tournament, and was spectacular. Carlsen finished in beautiful style, but in hindsight some of the slips along the way to the win were a hint of what was to come.
“Sensational finish!” says Leko as Magnus beats Hikaru in Round 1. “What a game!” says Judit: https://t.co/yHUo06cOc8#FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/c9lDADD0VH
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 7, 2025
Nakamura would go on to make four draws, which was exactly the same as World Champion Gukesh.
That didn’t mean any lack of action, however, as evidence of which you only need to give their crazy round-five draw, which featured a brilliant bishop sacrifice by Gukesh.
He then lost his way in the very tricky complications and Nakamura took over, then briefly Gukesh had another chance, then finally the clash ended in a 38-move draw by repetition.
That madness is one of the games covered by Nakamura in his recap.
Two of the players on 2/5, Gukesh and Carlsen, will meet in the final round of the Round-Robin on Saturday, in a clash of the current and former classical world champions. They’ll both hope that they’re in no danger by that point, but if they are, it could be quite a clash!
There are three rounds before that, however, starting with round six, where the match-ups include Carlsen-Abdusattorov, Caruana-Gukesh, and Sindarov-Nakamura.
How To Watch
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam starts with the $750,000 first of five legs in Weissenhaus, Germany, on February 7-14. The 10 players first play each other once in 10+10 rapid chess, with the bottom two eliminated and the top players choosing their opponents in the knockout. Each knockout round consists of two-game 90+30 classical chess matches. In case of a tie, two 10+10 games are played. If still tied, two 5+2 games are played, then a single Armageddon game. All games are played in freestyle chess.
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