Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura qualified for the final of the tour of the Grand Slam Freestyle Chess in Paris after having defeated Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer respectively in the semi-finals. Arjun Erigaisi, on the other hand, should fight for fifth place with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave after beating Ian Nepomniachtchi.
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Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura set up a dream final in the Parisian leg of the Grand Chelem tour of Freestyle chess while Arigaisi rebounded after consecutive defeats with consecutive victories on Saturday to qualify for the qualifiers in fifth place. Erigaisi was not the only Indian to find himself on the winning side of day 6 of the event, while R Praggnanandhaa defeated Richard report to finish ninth on 12 competitors.
The second of the five events of the inaugural tour of the Freestyle Grand Slam failures should end with a confrontation between the two best-classified players in the world, Carlsen and Nakamura defeating Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer respectively in the semi-finals. Carlsen and Nakamura won identical margins of 1.5-0.5, winning the second standard match on Saturday after shooting first the day before.
Hikaru Time tomorrow
– Magnus Carlsen (@magnuscarlsen) April 12, 2025
Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer, finalists of the Weissenhaus leg of the tour in February, should compete for third place Sunday after losing against Carlsen and Nakamura respectively. Keymer had won a fairy tale victory at the Seaside Resort on the German Baltic Coast to the north, but could not withdraw a reminder.
Erigaisi maintains the high flying Indian flag in Paris
The Indian grandmaster Erigaisi had finished fourth at the end of the round stage in his first round of the Freestyle tour, only for Nakamura to precipitate his hopes to go to the French capital. Friday, Warangal’s 21-year-old, Telangana underwent his second successive defeat by resigning in 41 movements in his classification match of the 5th-8th place against Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Erigaisi, however, retaliated breathtaking on Saturday, beating the Russian GM in just 24 movements in the second standard match to level the scores and take the link in fast equalities, where he went 1-0 by winning the first match. The two victories came by playing with white pieces.
Faced with an essential scenario, Nepomniachtchi jumped in the second break in fast equality, the evaluation bar exceeding 2 after in its favor at a given time. His chances of participating in the competition in blitz blisages with a score of 2-2 were still stimulated by his considerable advantage over his opponent.
An error in the 27th movement (BC3), however, gave Erigaisi the possibility of sneaking from the tight corner. And like D Gukesh in match 14 of his confrontation on the world championship against Ding Liren, he showed the kind of attitude “ Never-Say-Die ” which allowed him to drag the game to a 78 draw and seal a 2.5-1.5 victory.
Erigaisi faces Maxime Vachier-Lagrave for fifth place in Paris, the latter having defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov by a score similar to that of the Erigaisi-Nepomniachtchi match.
