GM Sina Movahed won Freestyle Friday on December 5 with a round to spare, becoming just the fourth player to win the event at least four times. Even more impressively, Movahed won 10 straight games to end the tournament, persevering despite a loss in the first round.
GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son was the last perfect player instead, reaching 5/5 before GM Jeffery Xiong defeated him to take the tournament lead with 5.5/6. Movahed finally joined the fun at the top of the standings after the seventh round, defeating Xiong to move into a tie with Nguyen and GM Mitrabha Guha on six points. Movahed only needed 18 moves to trap Xiong’s queen and win their game.
Movahed took the sole lead in the eighth round, and then tacked on a half-point to his lead over the field in the ninth and 10th rounds. His win over GM Alexander Grischuk in the 10th gave him a 1.5-point lead and clinched the tournament—Movahed had gone 9/9 while no other player exceeded 6.5/9 over the same span. Grischuk thought he was reclaiming a pawn with his final move of their battle, but instead simply overloaded his own bishop, which could not defend both c1 and f6. Several queen moves other than the pawn capture would have extended the game and the tournament.
In the 11th round, Movahed advanced his streak to a perfect 10 with a win over GM Pranav Anand. Meanwhile, Nguyen took second place on 8.5 points after defeating GM Haik Martirosyan.
It was Martirosyan who had convinced GM Magnus Carlsen to leave the tournament after the Armenian’s win in the sixth round kept Carlsen at just four points. The world number-one (on all the official ratings lists; he is fourth on the Chess.com Live 960 leaderboard) will hope to do better at the Freestyle Grand Slam in Cape Town, South Africa, December 8-11.
Carlsen entered play tied with Movahed as the winningest players in the field. Both had three victories apiece, and the players with more—GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Oleksandr Bortnyk, and Arjun Erigaisi—all did not play. Movahed still has work to do to catch them, but took his opportunity this week to inch closer.
Despite his loss in the 10th round, Grischuk won in the 11th to finish in fourth place. Just ahead of him on the tiebreaks was Xiong, while FM Rose Atwell won the women’s prize.
December 5 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 2 | GM | @Sina-Movahed | Sina Movahed | 2789 | 10 | 71.5 | |
| 2 | 16 | GM | @crescentmoon2411 | Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son | 2637 | 8.5 | 73 | |
| 3 | 7 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 2719 | 8 | 75 | |
| 4 | 12 | GM | @Grischuk | Alexander Grischuk | 2666 | 8 | 67.5 | |
| 5 | 4 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 2728 | 7.5 | 66 | |
| 6 | 14 | GM | @adotand | Pranav Anand | 2658 | 7.5 | 65.5 | |
| 7 | 8 | IM | @ChessFighter_2011 | Dau Khuong Duy | 2691 | 7.5 | 65 | |
| 8 | 15 | GM | @OparinGrigoriy | Grigoriy Oparin | 2620 | 7.5 | 62 | |
| 9 | 10 | GM | @Micki-taryan | Haik Martirosyan | 2683 | 7.5 | 61.5 | |
| 10 | 13 | GM | @mitrabhaa | Mitrabha Guha | 2644 | 7 | 65.5 | |
| 11 | 3 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 2726 | 7 | 57.5 | |
| 12 | 21 | CM | @Germanovs_Georgijs | Georgijs Germanovs | 2563 | 7 | 57.5 | |
| 13 | 6 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 2690 | 7 | 57 | |
| 14 | 28 | FM | @Turboplombir | Sergey Sklokin | 2505 | 7 | 56 | |
| 15 | 33 | IM | @chesniu | Yihan Meng | 2493 | 7 | 55.5 | |
| 16 | 36 | IM | @PiliposyanRobertChess | Robert Piliposyan | 2517 | 6.5 | 62 | |
| 17 | 79 | CM | @MrLion3000 | Isaak Parpiev | 2532 | 6.5 | 56 | |
| 18 | 24 | GM | @mbojan | Bojan Maksimović | 2540 | 6.5 | 54 | |
| 19 | 20 | GM | @Sam_ChessMood | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | 2553 | 6.5 | 51 | |
| 20 | 3 | CM | @XANTARESPEEK_1 | Samir Syzdyk | 2286 | 6.5 | 45.5 | |
| 21 | 27 | FM | @ilqar_74 | Rustam Rustamov | 2514 | 6 | 60.5 | |
| 22 | 72 | CM | @timurdzhaan | Timur Safin | 2228 | 6 | 60.5 | |
| 23 | 41 | IM | @Mops_2004 | Dmitriy Kushko | 2378 | 6 | 60.5 | |
| 24 | 51 | IM | @bazar-wokzal | Nikolai Vlassov | 2320 | 6 | 57.5 | |
| 25 | 45 | FM | @RoseAtwell | Rose Atwell | 2345 | 6 | 52 |
Prizes: Movahed $400, Nguyen $250, Xiong $150, Grischuk $100, Atwell $100.
Freestyle Friday is Chess.com’s weekly tournament dedicated to Freestyle Chess for titled players. The tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.
