GM Christopher Yoo received the Might 9 Freestyle Friday in a runaway, scoring 10.5 factors and securing outright victory with a spherical to spare. Solely a attract spherical 5 towards GM Ian Nepomniachtchi saved Yoo from the primary excellent 11/11 rating in match historical past. GM Hans Niemann, Vincent Keymer, and Aravindh Chithambaram rounded out the highest 4 out of the sphere of 270, with IM Nataliya Buksa taking the ladies’s prize. Yoo’s victory right here comes quickly after he received the Sardinia Chess Competition in Italy.
After 5 rounds there have been solely two excellent gamers remaining, though bizarrely, each of them then misplaced their subsequent three video games and left the match. It solely took till the eighth spherical for Yoo to achieve the only lead, which he achieved with a win over Pranav Venkatesh after a beginning place that may be a doozy even by Chess960 requirements: the a-pawns are hanging to the queens, and if they’re captured, the rooks on the b-file are trapped!Â
A spherical later, Yoo nonetheless led by half some extent, however he would defeat that closest rival, Aravindh. Keymer and GM Hikaru Nakamura had been the one gamers some extent behind Yoo, they usually drew with one another. And so, with this win, Yoo had already clinched the occasion (his second after one on April 11). In one other attention-grabbing beginning place, every participant obtained the possibility execute the longest castling maneuver in Freestyle.
All that was left now was to resolve second place, at the same time as Yoo added one more win to his totals for good measure, knocking Nakamura out of runner-up competition within the course of. Niemann would defeat IM Eray Kilic to take second on tiebreaks…
… over Keymer, who took third by toppling GM Shant Sargsyan in a fast-moving recreation, with a lot of the items gone when it ended after 34 strikes.
Might 9 Freestyle Friday | Ultimate Standings (High 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Identify | Ranking | Rating | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 16 | GM | @ChristopherYoo | Christopher Woojin Yoo | 2656 | 10.5 | 74 | |
| 2 | 6 | GM | @HansOnTwitch | Hans Niemann | 2753 | 9 | 71 | |
| 3 | 4 | GM | @VincentKeymer | Vincent Keymer | 2804 | 9 | 67 | |
| 4 | 44 | GM | @Vaathi_Coming | Aravindh Chithambaram | 2398 | 8.5 | 76 | |
| 5 | 17 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2535 | 8.5 | 68.5 | |
| 6 | 8 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 2706 | 8.5 | 65.5 | |
| 7 | 33 | GM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2411 | 8.5 | 57.5 | |
| 8 | 2 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 2803 | 8 | 74 | |
| 9 | 12 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 2631 | 8 | 69.5 | |
| 10 | 104 | GM | @Sina-Movahed | Sina Movahed | 1991 | 8 | 68 | |
| 11 | 30 | GM | @penguingm1 | Andrew Tang | 2428 | 8 | 67 | |
| 12 | 15 | GM | @GHANDEEVAM2003 | Arjun Erigaisi | 2572 | 8 | 66 | |
| 13 | 19 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 2520 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 14 | 26 | GM | @Sargsyan_Shant | Shant Sargsyan | 2441 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 15 | 5 | GM | @Grischuk | Alexander Grischuk | 2768 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 16 | 35 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 2400 | 8 | 63 | |
| 17 | 36 | GM | @moro182 | Luca Moroni Jr | 2358 | 8 | 53.5 | |
| 18 | 93 | IM | @DonkyDonkyDonkey | Eray Kilic | 1978 | 8 | 52 | |
| 19 | 3 | GM | @Zhuu96 | Zhamsaran Tsydypov | 2784 | 7.5 | 69.5 | |
| 20 | 1 | GM | @lachesisQ | Ian Nepomniachtchi | 2826 | 7.5 | 69 | |
| 21 | 60 | CM | @Germanovs_Georgijs | Georgijs Germanovs | 2127 | 7.5 | 58 | |
| 22 | 90 | IM | @AlmasRakhmatullaev | Almas Rakhmatullaev | 1999 | 7 | 71 | |
| 23 | 48 | GM | @Sam_ChessMood | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | 2279 | 7 | 67.5 | |
| 24 | 52 | IM | @wnstop | Zaur Tekeyev | 2282 | 7 | 67.5 | |
| 25 | 155 | FM | @Erdnya15 | Roman Shogdzhiev | 1802 | 7 | 64.5 | |
| 46 | 124 | IM | @Natalya_Buksa | Nataliya Buksa | 1862 | 6.5 | 52.5 |
Prizes: Yoo $400, Niemann $250, Keymer $150, Aravindh $100, Buksa $100.
Freestyle Friday is Chess.com’s weekly match devoted to Freestyle Chess for titled gamers. The match begins at 11:00 a.m. Jap Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Customary Time.
