It took tiebreaks to decide a winner in Freestyle Friday on November 21, with GM Pranesh M squeaking by GM Magnus Carlsen to claim his second Freestyle Friday in as many months.
Carlsen was the last perfect player in the field of 120, reaching 5/5. In the sixth round, he lost to eventual third-place finisher GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, who was streaming on the Freestyle Twitch channel and caught Magnus off-guard tactically to win in 25 moves.
Carlsen would recover in the next round by winning his individual matchup with Pranesh, also in 25 moves.
Meanwhile, Vachier-Lagrave lost to GM Oleskandr Bortnyk. By the end of the ninth round, however, it appeared Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave would take the top two spots in the tournament: Carlsen was in sole first on 8/9 and Vachier-Lagrave sole second with 7.5 points.
Then they both lost in the 10th, throwing the top of the standings into chaos. Carlsen still held the lead, but now shared it with three other players: Pranesh, GM Minh Le, and GM Sina Movahed, who had personally done the deed to bring Carlsen down into the tie.
Carlsen and Le were the only co-leaders who played each other in round 11, with Carlsen winning to get back on track. Movahed lost to Vachier-Lagrave, although he retained fourth place. And Pranesh played fellow Indian GM Mitrabha Guha.
Despite the head-to-head result between Carlsen and Pranesh, it was Pranesh who had played the higher-scoring slate of opponents and thus won the event. After them, Vachier-Lagrave, and Movahed, the last prize winner was WGM Vantika Agrawal, who won her last three games to take the women’s prize.
November 21 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 8 | GM | @artooon | Pranesh M | 2753 | 9 | 77 | |
| 2 | 2 | GM | @MagnusCarlsen | Magnus Carlsen | 2838 | 9 | 75 | |
| 3 | 1 | GM | @LyonBeast | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | 2843 | 8.5 | 69.5 | |
| 4 | 6 | GM | @Sina-Movahed | Sina Movahed | 2754 | 8 | 69 | |
| 5 | 28 | CM | @Germanovs_Georgijs | Georgijs Germanovs | 2578 | 8 | 66 | |
| 6 | 12 | GM | @BogdanDeac | Bogdan Daniel Deac | 2686 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 7 | 11 | GM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2666 | 8 | 61.5 | |
| 8 | 4 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2750 | 7.5 | 71.5 | |
| 9 | 24 | GM | @bardiya_Daneshvar | Bardiya Daneshvar | 2589 | 7.5 | 65.5 | |
| 10 | 27 | IM | @Carnivoras | Quoc Hy Nguyen | 2557 | 7.5 | 63.5 | |
| 11 | 16 | GM | @mitrabhaa | Mitrabha Guha | 2639 | 7.5 | 56 | |
| 12 | 18 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 2634 | 7.5 | 54.5 | |
| 13 | 17 | GM | @moro182 | Luca Moroni Jr | 2625 | 7.5 | 53 | |
| 14 | 74 | CM | @neymardasilvasantos_11 | Alper Tezcan | 2507 | 7.5 | 53 | |
| 15 | 23 | GM | @Vaathi_Coming | Aravindh Chithambaram | 2567 | 7 | 64 | |
| 16 | 5 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 2713 | 7 | 61 | |
| 17 | 26 | FM | @ilqar_74 | Rustam Rustamov | 2563 | 7 | 61 | |
| 18 | 15 | GM | @BillieKimbah | Maxim Matlakov | 2622 | 7 | 59.5 | |
| 19 | 33 | IM | @TimAina | Timothe Razafindratsima | 2495 | 7 | 58 | |
| 20 | 36 | IM | @chesniu | Yihan Meng | 2477 | 7 | 57 | |
| 34 | 68 | WGM | @awesomevishesh | Vantika Agrawal | 2261 | 6 | 48.5 |
Prizes: Pranesh $400, Carlsen $250, Vachier-Lagrave $150, Movahed $100, Vantika $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.
