Keymer grabs the lead in Freestyle Finals
20 year old German player Vincent Keymer has claimed the lead on Fabiano Caruana after game one of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals at Weissenhaus. All he needs in game two is a draw to win the tournament and the $200,000 first prize.
The balance was lost already on move 8, with a Caruana error, and Keymer made no mistake from there. The engine further suggests Caruana’s 12. …Ra3? (D) is almost a losing move too, rather than attempting play on the kingside with …f5-f4. It is funny to see White have a totally normal-looking position while Black remains scrambled.
Keymer soon played an h4-h5-h6 push, before switching back to the centre and catching Black’s king in the open, winning on move 33.
In the other matches: Magnus Carlsen won convincingly against Javokhir Sindarov in the third place match; Hikaru Nakamura leads Nodirbek Abdusattorov in the fifth place match; and Gukesh D and Alireza Firouzja drew the first game in the seventh place match. The final day of play begins at 7:00 a.m. ET / 1:00 p.m. CET February 14th — follow along live on Lichess.
Photo via Freestyle Chess / Lennart Ootes
