Carlsen wins Paris leg of Freestyle Chess Tour after defeating Hikaru in ultimate; Spectacular Arjun finishes fifth

Magnus Carlsen was topped champion within the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour after holding Hikaru Nakamura to a draw within the second recreation of their blockbuster ultimate on Monday. World No 1 Carlsen, in consequence, defeated Nakamura with a 1.5-0.5 scoreline on account of the stalemate, with the world No 2 having misplaced the opening recreation on Sunday after
committing a blunder in his thirty fifth transfer.

Carlsen and Nakamura had suffered semi-final defeats within the opening leg of the Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus, Germany in February, shedding to Vincent Keymer and Fabiano Caruana respectively. The Paris leg had the identical semi-final lineup as Weissenhaus, solely this time it was Caruana and Keymer’s flip to finish up on the shedding facet.

Caruana had defeated Keymer with black items on Sunday and had the higher hand for probably the most half in Recreation 2, which ultimately completed in a draw.

Carlsen thus pocketed the prize cash of $200,000 for profitable the Paris leg whereas Nakamura and Caruana received $140,000 and $100,000 respectively.

Arjun Erigaisi impresses on Freestyle Chess debut

Additionally securing a victory with a draw on Monday was Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi, who defeated France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by an identical scoreline to complete fifth on Freestyle Chess debut.

Erigaisi, the one Indian in motion within the final two days of the Paris leg, had received the primary spherical in 41 strikes whereas taking part in with black items and staved off a spirited fightback from the Frenchman on the ultimate day to carry him to a 58-move draw.

India’s @ArjunErigaisi holds a draw towards MVL to clinch Fifth place and $50,000 and the 2025 Paris #FreestyleChess Grand Slam is over! pic.twitter.com/PlbuwCeBJv

— chess24 (@chess24com) April 14, 2025

The 21-year-old had earlier suffered back-to-back defeats, shedding the second recreation of his quarter-final assembly with Nakamura earlier than shedding Recreation 1 of his Fifth-Eighth place classification match towards Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Erigaisi, nonetheless, bounced again on Saturday with back-to-back wins adopted by a draw towards ‘Nepo’ to defeat the Russian Grandmaster with a 2.5-1.5 scoreline within the recreation that was determined within the fast tie-breaks.

Nepomniachtchi later defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov, a last-minute substitute for American GM Hans Niemann, 2-0 of their seventh-place playoff.

As for the opposite Indians in motion, R Praggnanandhaa completed ninth after beating Hungarian GM Richard Rapport.

Reigning world champion D Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi, in the meantime, shared the eleventh spot, having completed on the backside of the desk on the finish of the round-robin stage earlier than shedding their Ninth-Twelfth classification matches towards Rapport and Praggnanandhaa respectively.