GM Vladislav Artemiev has taken residence the primary Freestyle Friday of August, the fourth straight week the place somebody gained the occasion for the primary time. The match nonetheless within the stability with a spherical left to go, Artemiev defeated GM Sam Sevian to win his eighth straight sport to conclude the occasion with a rating of 10/11, popping out forward of the sector of 168.
In a considerably amusing place the place castling won’t ever transfer a rook, White’s knights finally took up dominating positions on the queenside and gained an change out of it.
Sevian was nonetheless in a position to end within the paid place of fourth place, forward of GM Jeffery Xiong after successful their Tenth-round matchup. Do not miss the sequence on strikes 16-20.
Forward of each of them have been GMs Alexey Sarana and Matthias Bluebaum. It was additionally Sarana who ended the day’s longest excellent begin, which had belonged to GM Amin Tabatabaei on 7/7. Amusingly, neither participant moved a chunk till transfer 5, simply pawns. The sport was in the end determined when Tabatabaei missed Sarana’s one-move retreat right into a rook fork.
In customary chess, you’ll just about by no means see the pc favor Black after simply two strikes between grandmasters, however that is precisely what occurred to GM Haowen Xue within the sport the place Bluebaum clinched third place, as Bluebaum by no means let his benefit go after that.
The race to the ladies’s prize was shut, with IM Meri Arabidze ending one spot forward of WGM Anna Shukhman within the standings. Arabidze’s Tenth-round win over GM Sergei Iskusnyh was key.
August 1 Freestyle Friday | Closing Standings (Prime 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Identify | Score | Rating | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 34 | GM | @Sibelephant | Vladislav Artemiev | 2590 | 10 | 64.5 | |
| 2 | 9 | GM | @mishanick | Aleksei Sarana | 2727 | 9 | 66 | |
| 3 | 11 | GM | @Msb2 | Matthias Bluebaum | 2714 | 9 | 65.5 | |
| 4 | 7 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 2742 | 8.5 | 70 | |
| 5 | 3 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 2778 | 8 | 72 | |
| 6 | 19 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2661 | 8 | 69.5 | |
| 7 | 14 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 2676 | 8 | 66.5 | |
| 8 | 8 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 2715 | 8 | 64.5 | |
| 9 | 16 | GM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2655 | 8 | 63 | |
| 10 | 28 | GM | @FormerProdigy | David Navara | 2583 | 7.5 | 64 | |
| 11 | 48 | CM | @Germanovs_Georgijs | Georgijs Germanovs | 2466 | 7.5 | 60 | |
| 12 | 150 | GM | @Dr_Tyger | Haowen Xue | 2678 | 7.5 | 47.5 | |
| 13 | 23 | GM | @Sanan_Sjugirov | Sanan Sjugirov | 2622 | 7 | 72.5 | |
| 14 | 22 | GM | @Volodar_Murzin | Volodar Murzin | 2628 | 7 | 71 | |
| 15 | 21 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2619 | 7 | 70.5 | |
| 16 | 17 | GM | @Vaathi_Coming | Aravindh Chithambaram | 2637 | 7 | 70.5 | |
| 17 | 47 | GM | @Savva_KraSavva | Savva Vetokhin | 2464 | 7 | 66 | |
| 18 | 54 | IM | @Individoom | Bakhtiyar Askarov | 2423 | 7 | 65 | |
| 19 | 42 | IM | @MonsterChess_uz | Mukhammadali Abdurakhmonov | 2478 | 7 | 63 | |
| 20 | 6 | CM | @Nicki2013 | Nikolay Kleimenov | 2425 | 7 | 58.5 | |
| 35 | 58 | IM | @Meri-Arabidze | Meri Arabidze | 2360 | 6 | 59 |
Prizes: Artemiev $400, Sarana $250, Bluebaum $150, Sevian $100, $100.
Freestyle Friday is Chess.com’s weekly match devoted to Freestyle Chess for titled gamers. The match begins at 11:00 a.m. Japanese Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Commonplace Time.
