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

Magnus Carlsen was crowned champion in the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour after holding Hikaru Nakamura to a draw in the second game of their blockbuster final on Monday. World No 1 Carlsen, as a result, defeated Nakamura with a 1.5-0.5 scoreline as a result of the stalemate, with the world No 2 having lost the opening game on Sunday after committing a blunder in his 35th move.

Carlsen had suffered a shock loss against Vincent Keymer in the semi-finals of the Weissenhaus leg while Nakamura was sent packing by Javokhir Sindarov, another young, unfancied name who punched above his weight in the Freestyle format. The Paris leg had three of the four semi-finalists from the Weissenhaus leg, with Nakamura coming in for Sindarov and progressing to the final along with Carlsen.

Caruana had defeated Keymer with black pieces on Sunday and had the upper hand for the most part in Game 2, which eventually finished in a draw.

Carlsen thus pocketed the prize money of $200,000 for winning the Paris leg while Nakamura and Caruana won $140,000 and $100,000 respectively.

Arjun Erigaisi impresses on Freestyle Chess debut

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

Erigaisi, the only Indian in action in the last two days of the Paris leg, had won the first round in 41 moves while playing with black pieces and staved off a spirited fightback from the Frenchman on the final day to hold him to a 58-move draw.

India's @ArjunErigaisi holds a draw against MVL to clinch 5th 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, losing the second game of his quarter-final meeting with Nakamura before losing Game 1 of his 5th-8th place classification match against Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Erigaisi, however, bounced back on Saturday with back-to-back wins followed by a draw against ‘Nepo’ to defeat the Russian Grandmaster with a 2.5-1.5 scoreline in the game that was decided in the rapid tie-breaks.

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

As for the other Indians in action, R Praggnanandhaa finished ninth after beating Hungarian GM Richard Rapport.

Reigning world champion D Gukesh and Vidit Gujrathi, meanwhile, shared the 11th spot, having finished at the bottom of the table at the end of the round-robin stage before losing their 9th-12th classification matches against Rapport and Praggnanandhaa respectively.