Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Vincent Keymer each started their quarterfinal matches with victories against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Gukesh Dommaraju and Alireza Firouzja, respectively. This allowed them to take a more relaxed approach on the second day of this knockout round and observe what their opponents would come up with. Hikaru Nakamura, on the other hand, narrowly escaped defeat against Javokhir Sindarov.
The battle for ninth place between Levon Aronian and Vladimir Fedoseev also took place. Aronian took the lead with a victory.
On the second day of the quarterfinals, all games opened with the move 1.Nb3. Black responded either with 1...Nb6 or 1...Nc6. Only Magnus Carlsen deviated from this pattern with the black pieces, opting for 1...f6.
Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen left no doubts in their respective matches, both securing a clear 2-0 victory with another win.
Photo: Lennart Ootes
Carlsen emerged from the opening in a superior position and gained a pawn. He then simplified the position into a rook endgame, which he guided to victory with his usual remarkable technique.
Fabiano Caruana and Gukesh played an extremely short game. The classical chess world champion lost a pawn early and hoped for compensation against Caruana's slightly exposed king. However, after the white king was evacuated from the danger zone with an unusually long short castle, Gukesh resigned - somewhat prematurely.
Photo: Stev Bonhage
Vincent Keymer had also emerged victorious against Alireza Firouzja in the first game of the quarterfinals. In the second game, the German grandmaster had the white pieces, although in Freestyle Chess, this may not be as significant as in classical chess.
Firouzja needed to win to level the match and put in the effort, but it was not enough. In a winning position, Keymer settled for a draw.
Photo: Stev Bonhage
The final quarterfinal between Javokhir Sindarov and Hikaru Nakamura ended in another draw, which took the match to a tiebreak. In a somewhat surprising outcome, the Uzbek player prevailed in the rapid games with a score of 1½-½.
Javokhir Sindarov | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Hikaru Nakamura examines the starting position | Photo: Lennart Ootes
Levon Aronian won the match for ninth place, securing overall victory with a draw after his initial win.
Replay all games of the rapid round-robin on Live.ChessBase.com
