For the third time in seven weeks, Freestyle Friday was almost over before it started on July 18, with GM Dmitry Andreikin becoming the third player to take the tournament on a perfect 11/11 score, following GM Jeffery Xiong on June 6 and GM Hikaru Nakamura on June 27. Andreikin finished 1.5 points ahead of second place and 2.5 points ahead of third.
After five rounds, Andreikin was already the last player who had a chance at an unblemished score. In the sixth, Xiong became one of the several players who tried and failed to stop Andreikin on this day. By the time their game ended, Xiong was down a rook—and basically a king too, with mate in no less than three moves on the board.
In the next round, Andrekin took on the eventual runner-up, GM Parham Maghsoodloo, and won again. Although this time Andreikin was down a rook in the final position, it was a useless rook for Maghsoodloo, who was also about to lose his queen.
Andreikin now led the tournament by a full point, a threshold he never fell back below. From there, Andreikin took on and beat two more eventual top-five finishers, at which point he had nearly locked up the tournament with two rounds to spare, with only Maghsoodloo within even 1.5 points. One more win, against previous Freestyle Friday victor IM Renato Terry, locked up the tournament for good and put Andreikin on the precipice of perfection.
The final win was somewhat anticlimactic, Andreikin claiming the victory on time in an equal position against GM Dmitrij Kollars. Still, it was enough to join Xiong and Nakamura on Freestyle Friday’s short list of 11/11 scorers.
The more interesting 11th-round contest was the one between Maghsoodloo and GM Jonas Bjerre with outright second place on the line. What was shaping up as a tense middlegame suddenly ended when Bjerre pulled off a Botez Gambit and resigned.
Fortunately for Bjerre, the blunder didn’t cost him a paid position in the standings, as he finished fourth. GM Rasmus Svane took third, and IM Meri Arabize won the women’s prize.
Below, you can follow all 11 of Andreikin’s victories:
July 18 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 4 | GM | @FairChess_on_YouTube | Dmitry Andreikin | 2809 | 11 | 67 | |
| 2 | 10 | GM | @Parhamov | Parham Maghsoodloo | 2731 | 9.5 | 76 | |
| 3 | 19 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 2650 | 8.5 | 66 | |
| 4 | 23 | GM | @lilleper1 | Jonas Bjerre | 2616 | 8 | 68.5 | |
| 5 | 17 | FM | @artin10862 | Artin Ashraf | 2638 | 8 | 67.5 | |
| 6 | 6 | GM | @mishanick | Aleksei Sarana | 2707 | 8 | 62.5 | |
| 7 | 25 | GM | @dalmatinac101 | Ivan Saric | 2574 | 8 | 61.5 | |
| 8 | 11 | IM | @MITerryble | Renato Terry | 2680 | 7.5 | 72.5 | |
| 9 | 18 | GM | @Zhigalko_Sergei | Sergei Zhigalko | 2626 | 7.5 | 67 | |
| 10 | 2 | GM | @PeacefulWarrior888 | Arman Mikaelyan | 2749 | 7.5 | 64 | |
| 11 | 14 | GM | @GM_dmitrij | Dmitrij Kollars | 2663 | 7.5 | 62.5 | |
| 12 | 48 | FM | @SahibSinghKnight | Sahib Singh | 2422 | 7.5 | 53.5 | |
| 13 | 16 | GM | @Vaathi_Coming | Aravindh Chithambaram | 2641 | 7 | 70 | |
| 14 | 35 | GM | @Kosak12 | Jakub Kosakowski | 2501 | 7 | 62.5 | |
| 15 | 28 | GM | @moro182 | Luca Moroni Jr | 2548 | 7 | 61.5 | |
| 16 | 7 | GM | @fireheart92 | Adhiban Baskaran | 2687 | 7 | 60.5 | |
| 17 | 42 | GM | @Gareth-Bale11 | Mamikon Gharibyan | 2457 | 7 | 58 | |
| 18 | 45 | FM | @Gunner214 | Mykola Korchynskyi | 2421 | 7 | 57.5 | |
| 19 | 47 | GM | @alexrustemov | Alexander Rustemov | 2410 | 7 | 54.5 | |
| 20 | 29 | IM | @atbenina64 | Abtin Atakhan | 2521 | 7 | 54.5 | |
| 32 | 58 | IM | @Meri-Arabidze | Meri Arabidze | 2353 | 6 | 55.5 |
Prizes: Andreikin $400, Maghsoodloo $250, Svane $150, Bjerre $100, Arabidze $100.
With the Las Vegas Freestyle Chess Grand Slam ongoing, Freestyle Friday this week featured 165 players. Expect participation to rebound in the coming weeks.
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.
