Oleksandr Bortnyk Wins Fourth Freestyle Friday

GM Oleksandr Bortnyk won his fourth Freestyle Friday on August 29, moving past GM Arjun Erigaisi for the second-most in the tournament’s brief history, trailing only GM Hikaru Nakamura. It was Nakamura who finished second this week, half a point behind Bortnyk and ahead of GM Hans Niemann on tiebreaks.

I won Freestyle Friday!

— Oleksandr Bortnyk (@BortnykChess) August 29, 2025

Bortnyk and Nakamura both started today 4/4 before playing each other to a draw in the fifth round, while Niemann lost in round two, and so the last player with a perfect score was GM Matthias Bluebaum. Bluebaum’s perfect 5/5 run would not survive an encounter with Nakamura, however. Despite some engine-identified inaccuracies from both parties, Nakamura eventually won in an endgame while Black’s dark-squared bishop largely played spectator.

Nakamura didn’t get to enjoy the victory for very long. Niemann, despite his final ranking, in fact won his individual matchups with both of the players ahead of him, defeating Nakamura in the seventh round and Bortnyk in the eighth. At one point, Bortnyk seemed to take a free pawn, but instead forced himself to give up an exchange to avoid mate. The game did not last much longer anyhow.

This streak earned Niemann the sole lead with three rounds remaining, which he held for one more round after defeating GM Bogdan Daniel Deac, but not for two more, as he was then stopped by GM Alexey Sarana. At that point it was Bortnyk who led with a round to go, after winning in the 10th against GM Minh Le after a crazy blunder on move two.

Nakamura also moved back into a tie with Niemann through 10 rounds by defeating Deac, but Bortnyk could clinch the tournament with a win in the final round, and he achieved just that against GM Luca Moroni. Bortnyk was never in danger of losing, but still had to win the game three separate times (in the computer’s estimation). The second winning position was achieved with an inspired stretch of play on moves 16-19 to go an exchange ahead, and the third resulted in checkmate before move 30.

Nakamura and Niemann both won in the final round as well, against GM Aravindh Chithambaram and IM Saidakbar Saydaliev, respectively, to retain their spots in the top three. No one else scored more than 7.5 points, but of the six players who achieved that mark, GM Rinat Jumabayev took fourth place with the best tiebreaks—and in fact needing the second tiebreak to outperform Bluebaum. The women’s prize went to IM Nataliya Buksa.

August 15 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings.)