Grischuk Rides Big Win Streak To 2nd Freestyle Friday Victory

GM Alexander Grischuk won his second Freestyle Friday of the year on September 26, recovering from a 1.5/3 start by winning his last eight games to clear the 135-player field by a full point. GMs Hikaru Nakamura and Jan-Krzysztof Duda were Grischuk’s closest rivals, each finishing on 8.5 points.

Halfway through the event, it was GM Andrey Esipenko who looked on his way to the win, which would have been his first. Esipenko began with a 6/6 score, which he reached against Duda. The game was competitive for a long time, but Duda began to go wrong in the endgame after move 50, and he soon lost a piece attempting to prevent Esipenko’s a-pawn from promoting.

Unfortunately for Esipenko, he only scored one point in the next four rounds, although he was able to recover in the final round to take a paid spot in fourth place. Grischuk himself took Esipenko down in the ninth round. Esipenko lost on time in just 18 moves when his last 30 seconds expired, which suggests something of a lack of intent, but the position on the board did reflect a tough time ahead of him regardless.

Even after that, Grischuk was still not in the lead. Duda was—but not for much longer, with Grischuk continuing his scorching-hot play, never worse in their 10th-round encounter and usurping the top tournament standing.

Entering the final round, Grischuk’s 8.5 points led Duda and IM Renato Terry, both on eight, and four players on 7.5 points, three of whom have won Freestyle Friday multiple times before (Nakamura, GM Sina Movahed, and GM Arjun Erigaisi). Grischuk toppled Terry, wrapping up his big win streak and joining those three (and others) as multi-tournament winners.

Meanwhile, Duda and Movahed played to a draw, keeping Duda a place on the podium, and Nakamura (who endured a 2.5/6 stretch in rounds four through nine before picking up a win in the 10th) then rose all the way to second place when he defeated the fourth player on 7.5, GM Haowen Xue, in the 11th. Xue missed Nakamura’s 22nd move, which ended the competitive part of the game as far as the computer was concerned, but Xue held on for another 75 turns. Nakamura may have found this perisistence juuust a bit of nuisance, eventually underpromoting to minor pieces, then throwing away everything except a bishop and knight before still delivering checkmate.

The final prize, after the top four finishers, went to women’s prize winner FM Rose Atwell, her second in as many months.

September 26 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 20)