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Norway’s world No 1, Magnus Carlsen, was shocked by a 0.5-1.5 loss to the US veteran Levon Aronian in Thursday’s final of the Freestyle Grand Slam Tour in Cape Town, but still finished the overall winner of the five-event Tour.
Freestyle chess is also known as Fischer Random and Chess 960. Pieces start randomly placed on the two back rows, thus drastically limiting opening preparation. Its 2025 season, with a Tour financed mainly by a $12m investment from the venture firm Left Lane Capital, has featured tournaments in Weissenhaus, Karlsruhe, Paris and Las Vegas before the final in South Africa.
Carlsen had already won two events and needed only to finish fourth in Cape Town to be sure of Tour victory. He was briefly in danger early on when, sick, he lost his first game to his old rival Fabiano Caruana, saying: “I’m quite aware that I’m just not able to think as clearly as I need on a day like this.” The 5/2 blitz tiebreaks brought a further challenge: “I had to tell myself several times, make a move, c’mon, what are you doing.” He survived that: “When it comes down to a bullet scramble, I’m a bit better than they are,” and also won his semi-final against the World Cup champion, Javokhir Sindarov, who turned 20 during the tournament.
How can he stop Black playing Qxg2 mate? Illustration: The Guardian
Carlsen really enjoys Freestyle: “It has brought back the feeling of pure discovery – you never know the position, you have to think and create.”
Aronian took a different and more relaxed approach. He was undecided who to pick for his quarter-final opponent, so got his wife, Anita, to make the choice. After defeating Hans Niemann in that match, he expressed surprised satisfaction at getting so far, and then, after a somewhat lucky victory over Germany’s Vincent Keymer in their semi-final, he simply said: “I’m rich!”
Aronian’s good fortune continued against Carlsen in the final, where the Norwegian chose a dubious opening gambit and never had sufficient compensation for two pawns.
In the return game, Aronian established a solid position and easily held off Carlsen’s endgame attempts. The former Armenian No 1 completed 17 games over four days of play without a single loss.
Keymer finished third after the German world No 4 defeated Sindarov 2-0. Caruana, the world No 3 and US champion, beat India’s world No 5, Arjun Erigaisi, 1.5-0.5 in the fifth place match, while Niemann beat Iran’s Parham Maghsoodloo 3-1 for seventh.
Last week’s XTX Markets London Classic at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium proved a success for England’s grandmasters, who took third, fourth and fifth places behind the world stars Nodirbek Abdusattorov (Uzbekistan) and Alireza Firouzja (France).
Final leading totals were Abdusattorov 7.5/9, Firouzja 5.5, Nikita Vitiugov (England) 5, Luke McShane and Michael Adams (both England) 4.5. The prizes were £25,000, £15,000 and £10,000. The organisation of the event was widely praised.
Abdusattorov, 21, demonstrated his skills with a dominant 2900+ tournament performance. His dedicated approach was reminiscent of the Soviet grandmasters of the last century and he scored six wins in a row, a rare achievement in elite company, before easing into first prize and a final 2932 tournament performance rating.
In a frank and detailed interview after the tournament, he revealed how he motivated himself by channelling his disappointment over his failure in the World Cup into a desire for revenge, and then boosted his energy with his winning sequence.
XTX Markets, which sponsored the London Classic for a second successive year, also backs ChessFest, the annual free open chess day in Trafalgar Square, which takes place in July.
The Classic’s final event was the Super Rapidplay, a 10-round competition staged last weekend at the London Novotel West Hotel with a huge entry of more than 300.
It produced three notable performances. Greece’s top player, Nikolas Theodorou, 25, won the £10,000 first prize with 9/10 after defeating Abdusattorov in the final round. The Uzbek GM lost on time at the end, but he had no defence to Theodorou’s passed d pawn. Firouzja, the world No 6, won the £5,000 second prize in the final round with a devastating 23 Nxh7! sacrifice.
Theodorou scored 9/10, Firouzja 8.5, with six players sharing third on 8. A major surprise came among the players sharing ninth place on 7.5/10, where Livio Cancedda-Dupuis, 15, emerged as the top English junior ahead of the established national trio of Shreyas Royal, Sohum Lohia and Stanley Badacsonyi.
Cancedda-Dupuis lives in Putney, London, where he attends the Ashcroft Technology Academy. He has played few classical tournaments but has an impressive online presence including more than 40,000 one-minute bullet games with a lichess rating above 2900 and more than 15,000 blitz games with a rating above 2770. His ambition is (of course!) to become a grandmaster.
The teenager’s Super Rapidplay performance was rated at 2515, which in a classical event would easily qualify for an IM norm. It included 3.5/6 against GMs, and 4-0 against others. His biggest scalp was the former US champion Sam Shankland, who blundered the exchange.
Cancedda-Dupuis said that he recommends players wishing to improve to concentrate on tactical awareness, and also to play many online games so as to become familiar with typical openings and structures. His special hero is Carlsen, and he also admires Hikaru Nakamura and Firouzja, who gave him a lesson here.
4002: 1 Qh8+ Rg8 2 Qxg8+! Kd7 (if Nxg8 3 Rxd8 mate) 3 Qxd8+ Kc6 4 Qd6 mate.
English (US)