Yoo Wins Freestyle Friday By 1.5 Points
GM Christopher Yoo won the May 9 Freestyle Friday, scoring 10.5 points and securing outright victory with a round to spare. Only a draw in round five against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi kept Yoo from the first perfect 11/11 score in tournament history. GM Hans Niemann, Vincent Keymer, and Aravindh Chithambaram rounded out the top four out of the field of 270, with IM Nataliya Buksa taking the women's prize. Yoo's victory here comes soon after he won the Sardinia Chess Festival in Italy.
After five rounds there were only two perfect players remaining, although bizarrely, both of them then lost their next three games and left the tournament. It only took until the eighth round for Yoo to gain the sole lead, which he achieved with a win over Pranav Venkatesh after a starting position that is a doozy even by Chess960 standards: the a-pawns are hanging to the queens, and if they are captured, the rooks on the b-file are trapped!
A round later, Yoo still led by half a point, but he would defeat that closest rival, Aravindh. Keymer and GM Hikaru Nakamura were the only players a point behind Yoo, and they drew with each other. And so, with this win, Yoo had already clinched the event (his second after one on April 11). In another interesting starting position, each player got the chance execute the longest castling maneuver in Freestyle.
All that was left now was to decide second place, even as Yoo added yet another win to his totals for good measure, knocking Nakamura out of runner-up contention in the process. Niemann would defeat IM Eray Kilic to take second on tiebreaks...
... over Keymer, who took third by toppling GM Shant Sargsyan in a fast-moving game, with most of the pieces gone when it ended after 34 moves.
May 9 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 16 | GM | @ChristopherYoo | Christopher Woojin Yoo | 2656 | 10.5 | 74 | |
| 2 | 6 | GM | @HansOnTwitch | Hans Niemann | 2753 | 9 | 71 | |
| 3 | 4 | GM | @VincentKeymer | Vincent Keymer | 2804 | 9 | 67 | |
| 4 | 44 | GM | @Vaathi_Coming | Aravindh Chithambaram | 2398 | 8.5 | 76 | |
| 5 | 17 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2535 | 8.5 | 68.5 | |
| 6 | 8 | GM | @Konavets | Sam Sevian | 2706 | 8.5 | 65.5 | |
| 7 | 33 | GM | @wonderfultime | Tuan Minh Le | 2411 | 8.5 | 57.5 | |
| 8 | 2 | GM | @Hikaru | Hikaru Nakamura | 2803 | 8 | 74 | |
| 9 | 12 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav V | 2631 | 8 | 69.5 | |
| 10 | 104 | GM | @Sina-Movahed | Sina Movahed | 1991 | 8 | 68 | |
| 11 | 30 | GM | @penguingm1 | Andrew Tang | 2428 | 8 | 67 | |
| 12 | 15 | GM | @GHANDEEVAM2003 | Arjun Erigaisi | 2572 | 8 | 66 | |
| 13 | 19 | GM | @jefferyx | Jeffery Xiong | 2520 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 14 | 26 | GM | @Sargsyan_Shant | Shant Sargsyan | 2441 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 15 | 5 | GM | @Grischuk | Alexander Grischuk | 2768 | 8 | 65.5 | |
| 16 | 35 | GM | @rasmussvane | Rasmus Svane | 2400 | 8 | 63 | |
| 17 | 36 | GM | @moro182 | Luca Moroni Jr | 2358 | 8 | 53.5 | |
| 18 | 93 | IM | @DonkyDonkyDonkey | Eray Kilic | 1978 | 8 | 52 | |
| 19 | 3 | GM | @Zhuu96 | Zhamsaran Tsydypov | 2784 | 7.5 | 69.5 | |
| 20 | 1 | GM | @lachesisQ | Ian Nepomniachtchi | 2826 | 7.5 | 69 | |
| 21 | 60 | CM | @Germanovs_Georgijs | Georgijs Germanovs | 2127 | 7.5 | 58 | |
| 22 | 90 | IM | @AlmasRakhmatullaev | Almas Rakhmatullaev | 1999 | 7 | 71 | |
| 23 | 48 | GM | @Sam_ChessMood | Samvel Ter-Sahakyan | 2279 | 7 | 67.5 | |
| 24 | 52 | IM | @wnstop | Zaur Tekeyev | 2282 | 7 | 67.5 | |
| 25 | 155 | FM | @Erdnya15 | Roman Shogdzhiev | 1802 | 7 | 64.5 | |
| 46 | 124 | IM | @Natalya_Buksa | Nataliya Buksa | 1862 | 6.5 | 52.5 |
Prizes: Yoo $400, Niemann $250, Keymer $150, Aravindh $100, Buksa $100.
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.
Nathaniel Green is a staff writer for Chess.com who writes articles, player biographies, Titled Tuesday reports, video scripts, and more. He has been playing chess for about 30 years and resides near Washington, DC, USA.
