Chess: world No 1 Carlsen adds another triumph in Paris Freestyle final

Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, added another triumph to his illustrious career on Monday when he won the Paris leg of the $3.75mn Freestyle Grand Slam by defeating his old rival and world No 2, the US’s Hikaru Nakamura, by 1.5-0.5 in the final.

Technically, the decisive game was somewhat uneven, with errors on both sides, as Carlsen described in his post-game interview. Monday’s 40-move draw was comparatively calm, as neither player could establish any significant advantage.

Earlier, Carlsen displayed his creativity when he successfully gave up his queen for three minor pieces in his quarter-final match, and his versatility and his continuing chess hunger when, his day’s work in Paris complete, he took part in chess.com’s weekly Titled Tuesday and made a clean sweep of all 11 games, a rare feat which he has already achieved twice. The Norwegian’s semi-final win against the US champion, Fabiano Caruana, was also smooth and impressive.

Vincent Keymer, 21, enhanced his growing status as one of the leaders of the young generation when the German, who took the $200,000 first prize ahead of Carlsen at the first Freestyle Grand Slam leg, knocked out Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi in the quarter-final before losing to Nakamura in the semis and to Caruana in the third-place match.

In Carlsen’s Freestyle games, he often spots this metamorphosis faster than his rivals, and that is one secret of his continued success

In general, it has become apparent that the openings in Freestyle are treacherous ground, where careless play can lead to a lost position within a dozen moves. Relevant experience helps, though. Freestyle has 960 different starting positions, but there have already been cases where one of the 960 has appeared in a previous tournament, and a grandmaster has remembered it.

It usually happens that, sometime in the first 20 or so moves, the position in a Freestyle game becomes recognisably similar to chess, and the players can use their previous knowledge effectively. In Carlsen’s Freestyle games, he often spots this metamorphosis faster than his rivals, and that is one secret of his continued success.

Conversely, the striking negative at Paris has been the failure of the Indian players who have dominated classical chess in recent years. The best was the world No 5, Arjun Erigaisi, who finished fifth, but the most disappointing has been Gukesh Dommaraju. The 18-year-old world champion, who memorably defeated China’s Ding Liren for the crown in 2024, already did badly in the first Freestyle leg in Germany.  

This time, needing a draw to qualify for the Paris quarter-finals, the teenager was crushed by Russia’s Nepomniachtchi in only 21 moves.

Gukesh’s decisive error came as early as move five, when instead of 5 . . . Nbd7? he should have preferred 5 . . . h5! to chase away White’s g3 knight. As played, 5 . . . Nbd7? allowed 6 cxd5 exd5 7 Nf5! followed by 8 Qg5! when White already had a strong attack against Black’s artificially castled king. It did not get any better, and White’s finale 21 Bxf6+ caused a collapse of Black’s defences. Gukesh finished Paris a disastrous 11th out of 12.

How all this will play out for the 2025 Freestyle Grand Slam in the coming months remains to be seen. The third leg, scheduled for New York in late July, has been moved to Las Vegas and reduced from eight days to five, allowing two games a day in the interests of greater publicity. This means a faster time limit, from slow classical chess, as favoured by Carlsen, to one-hour rapid chess.

The change may also reflect the more fragile global economic climate caused by President Trump’s tariff wars. The Grand Slam series, which was projected to break even with the help of new trading partners by 2026, is backed by a $12mn investment from the New York-based venture capitalist firm Left Lane Capital, which is not publicly quoted but is still susceptible to market downturns and recessions. Hence, the pressures for Freestyle to achieve faster profitability, and wider support among the chess public and media, are increasing. 

England swept the board in the European Senior Team Championships for over-50s and over-65s at Swidnica, Poland, last weekend, winning three team golds, one team bronze and 14 individual medals. It was a classic case of overkill, however, as entry numbers were sharply down and the quality of England’s rivals did not match the competitive field for the World Teams at Prague in February.  

In Chongqing, Ju Wenjun, the holder, has taken a commanding 6-2 lead in the all-Chinese match for the women’s world championship. Her opponent, Tan Zhongyi, had lost four games in a row, and seemed demoralised in game seven when she allowed her light-squared black bishop to be entombed at a8 behind her own pawn at c6 and a dominating white knight at c5. Ju now needs just a single draw in the remainder of the 12-game series to retain her crown.

Meanwhile BBC2’s weekly series Chess Masters: The Endgame reaches its sixth episode (of eight) this evening as the contestants struggle with Carlsen’s memory test, which proved difficult earlier. Audience figures, supplied by Broadcast, have stabilised at 606,000. Reports say that the show is popular among social chess players, beginners and families, but that many experts are put off by the lack of visual assists to allow them to follow the games and puzzles.

Puzzle 2620

Richard Britton vs John Emms, Oakham, 1994. Both sides have promoted pawns into queens. Black (to play) chose 1 . . . Qde2. Why was this a blunder, and how instead could Black have won immediately? 

Click here for solution