Tournament summary of 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Weissenhaus

stolen from reddit:

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1739550209_6Q6ZEMWgVofug.webp

Final standings:

1 - Vincent Keymer: He was unimpressive at Tata Steel and was nothing special in the round robin either, but in the classical portion of this tournament, he was a different player altogether. First beat Alireza, then Magnus, then Fabiano. Never looked in trouble against any of them outside of a couple of moments in the second game against Magnus. A very deserving winner, since he was clearly the best player in the classical.

2 - Fabiano Caruana: From leading for most of the round robin and eventually finishing 3rd there, and then convincingly beating world champion Gukesh 2-0 in the quarter-finals, there was never a moment when he looked out of touch. He had nothing for Vincent in the finals, but it was a really good event overall.

3 - Magnus Carlsen: For Magnus, any event where he doesn't win is a disappointing result. That said, outside of the first day in the round robin, he played really good chess throughout, scoring 3.5/4 on the second day and beating Nodirbek and Sindarov 2-0. Just like Fabiano, he also came up short against an inspired Vincent, and because he met the latter in the semi-finals he had to settle for 3rd.

4 - Javokhir Sindarov: In what could be his big breakout event, he was dominant for most of the round robin, only finishing 2nd there due to losing in the last round. Showed incredible resistance and tenacity to beat Hikaru after bravely picking him, and was incredibly close to getting to the finals. 4th after such a run must feel disappointing for him, but he has a lot to be proud of.

5 - Hikaru Nakamura: His tournament was similar to Magnus, outside of the first day he generally played really good chess, starting off by scoring 3.5/4 on the second day. A couple of critical mistakes in time trouble against Sindarov meant he lost his quarter-final match, and despite convincingly winning against Gukesh and demolishing Nodirbek, that put him in a situation where he couldn't go any higher than 5th.

6 - Nodirbek Abdusattorov: Not exactly a tournament to write home about for him. Was not convincing in the round robin, sneaking through in the final spot. Got demolished by both Magnus and Hikaru in the knockout phase, but swindling Alireza in between those matches was able to help him get to 6th.

7 - Alireza Firouzja: After winning the round robin with 6.5 points, the classical portion just did not work out for him. From being outplayed by Vincent in the first match, he also lost out against Nodirbek after initially having a winning position. He did win the 7th place match against Gukesh (after again blowing a winning position in the first game of that match), but that is a very underwhelming end after such a promising start.

8 - Gukesh Dommaraju: He showed amazing defensive resilience to draw a lot of worse positions in both the round robin and the knockouts, but the fact that he consistently got into them was a disappointment. And being the only winless player in the tournament. Exhaustion from Tata Steel and world championship combined with being less experienced in Freestyle than the others definitely played a part in his performance.

9 - Levon Aronian: The round robin was a disaster, and as a result he was not able to make it to the knockouts. Being the oldest player did not help his chances considering the round robin was with rapid time controls. He did smoothly win the 9th place match against Fedoseev in classical to avoid last.

10 - Vladimir Fedoseev: He has a reputation of being a streaky player who can go on a big run but is also prone to tilt. The 0/4 start in the round robin pretty much put him in a position where qualifying was difficult, and despite two wins later on including one against Magnus, he missed out by half a point. Lost the 9th place match against Levon who played a lot better in that match than he ever did in the round robin.


https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1ijnckf/event_2025_freestyle_chess_grand_slam_weissenhaus/mcquwr4/?context=8

https://i.rdrama.net/images/1739550209RVtN8TSxvsPx6A.webp

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/u/sexxyblack stole your post :marseyde#alwithitsoy:

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