GM Bogdan-Daniel Deac profited the most from the absence of top GMs as he won the post-Christmas Freestyle Friday and its $400 first prize. The 24-year-old Romanian grandmaster edged out IM Eray Kilic and GM Jeffery Xiong on tiebreaks after all three finished on 9/11.
Boxing Day saw a “different” Freestyle Friday than usual, as it was held in the shadow of a rather big event underway at the moment in Doha, Qatar. With the likes of GMs Magnus Carlsen, Arjun Erigaisi, and others all active in the World Rapid Championship, not many big names were able to join our weekly Chess960 event for the simple reason that the playing schedules clashed.
That meant a big opportunity for lower-rated players, many among them Freestyle specialists, to go for the prizes this time. The player who seemed the hungriest for success was FM Artin Ashraf, who started with a magnificent seven out of seven.
The 17-year-old Iranian player has been mentioned regularly in our Freestyle Friday reports as he usually plays on the higher boards. His best result so far was a clear second place on June 27 of this year.
Among those seven wins was the following, against the player who would end up winning the tournament. In a drawn position, Deac lost this one on time.
After those seven rounds of living on cloud nine, the fun was over for Ashraf. He would lose his next two games, first to GM Vugar Rasulov and then to Kilic, the runner-up in the final standings. That last game ended in checkmate.
By this point, with two rounds to go, Kilic was the one in pole position. The Turkish IM was a point clear of five players: Ashraf, Deac, Xiong, Rasulov, and GM Zhamsaran Tsydypov. Everything was wide open again when Xiong beat Kilic in the penultimate round, in swift fashion.
Ashraf and Deac won their games as well and joined Xiong and Kilic in shared first place. In the final round, Kilic won quickly and so he was the first to reach nine points. Ashraf seemed on his way to a top position as well, until he blundered vs. Xiong.
Deac then joined Kilic and Xiong on nine points, and with the best tiebreak, as he flagged his opponent while also having a close to winning position on the board.
Freestyle Friday December 26 Final Standings (Top 16)
Prizes: Deac $400, Kilic $250, Xiong $150, Ashraf $100, Sargsyan $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.
