Keymer and Abdusattorov play for third place and the last 2027 qualification spot.
Magnus Carlsen will face Fabiano Caruana in the final of the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship. Both grandmasters advanced through the semifinals on Saturday. World number one Carlsen now has the chance to claim a 21st world title.
The Norwegian defeated Nodirbek Abdusattorov 3–1, taking control of the match in the decisive phases and closing it out over four games. Caruana overcame Vincent Keymer 2½–1½, converting an early lead and holding firm under pressure. Both younger semifinalists had chances during their matches, but their experienced opponents prevailed at the critical moments.
The final will determine the first FIDE-recognized Freestyle Chess World Champion under the federation’s official framework. By reaching the final, Carlsen and Caruana have secured qualification for the 2027 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship. The third and final qualification spot will be decided in the third-place match between Abdusattorov and Keymer.
In the lower bracket, Hans Niemann beat Levon Aronian 2½–1½, while Arjun Erigaisi defeated Javokhir Sindarov 3–1. Niemann and Erigaisi will play for fifth place, with Aronian and Sindarov contesting seventh.
The women’s exhibition match between Bibisara Assaubayeva and Alexandra Kosteniuk is level at 1–1 after two games of their best-of-four encounter. The championship concludes on Sunday with the final and placement matches.
With northern Germany currently under fierce winter weather, a cold and snowy Weissenhaus was the backdrop for the semifinals of the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship. The event moved to a knockout format on Valentine’s Day with four-game matches at a longer time control: 25 minutes and a 10-second increment. At the end of the day, none of these matches ended in 2-2, so just like on the first day, a playoff wasn’t needed.
Abdusattorov – Carlsen: 1-3
As the winner of the round-robin tournament, Carlsen had handpicked his opponent from the two options he had. Even so, he got involved in a difficult match with Abdusattorov, who put up a great fight. “It was definitely a very tough match against somebody who I feel gets stronger and stronger every time I play him,” Carlsen said afterward.
The Uzbek GM’s style is to play quickly and put pressure on the clock, and it almost worked today. Carlsen got low on time at several points and narrowly survived those time troubles.
The 2025 Tour winner arrived somewhat late for the first game of the day and missed the joint analysis. It kind of showed, when he needed almost five minutes on his first move and another three and a half on the second. Abdusattorov got an edge, but Carlsen countered nicely to secure the first half point as Black.
The second encounter was drawn as well, ending slightly prematurely perhaps. With 10 minutes on the clock vs. just half a minute for Carlsen, Abdusattorov accepted a draw, but according to commentator Peter Leko the position on the board was actually a dead draw. Carlsen described those first two games as “relatively high quality draws.”
The key moment of this semifinal came on move 33 in game three. It had been a very sharp middlegame already, with both players pushing passed pawns up the board. Now, with only heavy pieces on the board, Abdusattorov felt he had to play for a win because his passers were further advanced. While the draw was for the taking, the Uzbek GM made a big mistake. Carlsen grabbed his chance with a series of powerful moves, and took a lead in the match.
33…. Re2? Abdusattorov declines the draw that he can force in the board, but does so with a losing move.He should have played 33…Re1+ 34.Rxe1 Qxe1+35.Kh2 Qxd2 allowing a perpetual check given by the white queen. 34.Qg4+! Kh8 35.Rxe2 Qxe2 Black cannot save himself with 35…dxe2 36.Re1 Qc537.Qxe2 c3 38.a6 c2 39.Rc1 36.Qh4! Rg8 37.Qf6+Rg7 38.Qf8+Rg8 39.Qf6+Rg7 40.Qd8+! Rg8 41.Qd4+Rg7 42.Rg1! As it turns out, White’s are more dangerous than Black’s with the rook on g7 being pinned. It’s over. 42…d2 43.b6 Kg84 4.Qd8+ Kf7 45.b7 Rxg2 46.Qd5+ Kf6 47.Qxg2 d1=Q 48.Qxe2 1–0
We’ll give the microphone to Carlsen once again for his description of game four: “The last game I thought I had decent control over. There were a lot of complications at some point but it felt like it should always favor me to some degree, or at least be safe. For some reason I was hesitating, trying to find the cleanest way and I just spent all my time. It really annoyed me because once I’d spent all that time I realized: this is actually quite easy, but now if I get surprised at some point, what am I gonna do? I had 15 seconds or something. Fortunately there were no more surprises and he kind of lost on the next move. I guess I was always on the board kind of in control but getting down that much on time feels a bit silly.”
“Of course the third game kind of determines a lot,” Carlsen said. “I think I was playing a good game until some point, then I lost control. He did extremely well, which he does. He calculates and he’s tough, but that was also his undoing at some point because I was fighting, getting low on time but not immediately collapsing and then I managed to sort of stay afloat. Then he clearly needed to make a draw and when he didn’t, I was thinking OK, maybe I have a chance now. Fortunately I managed to calm down, calculate and find the win.”
Keymer –Caruana 1.5-2.5
“A bit of a rollercoaster,” Caruana described his semifinal. He had started the first day in Weissenhaus strongly, and he did so again on the second day. The American GM won the first game with the black pieces to take the lead in this match, with 7…g5 being the first contender for Move of the Day, and 11…Ba4 was another one. Out of nowhere, Caruana won an exchange and should have won comfortably, but much later in the game there was a moment where Keymer could have gotten away with a draw. Don’t miss the analysis that finishes with a beautiful stalemate!
It seemed anything could happen in the fourth game, but that one unexpectedly became a bit of a one-sided affair. Caruana won convincingly.
“I think Vincent, maybe after all the tension in the previous game, just couldn’t adjust,” he explained. “It wasn’t a good game from his side. I already got a comfortable position out of the opening and then he missed this tactic 12…Nc4 and this just completely fall apart for him and it was game over.” Note that the move mentioned by Caruana ended up being Leko and Polgar’s Move of the Day.
21…Nxe3! 22.fxe3 Rxd2 22…Rxd2 23.Rxd2 Bxf3 24.Qxf3 Bxd2 would win a third pawn (either e3 or a2) with a completely winning endgame, so Keymer resigned. 0–1
And so the big final on Sunday will be between Carlsen and Caruana, the same final that was played in the very first Weissenhaus event two years ago. Of course, it is also another rematch between the two contestants of the 2018 classical world championship, and this time once again a world title will be at stake.
“I think it’s gonna be a very tough match,” Carlsen said. “Honestly, today I think, except for my time usage I played alright so it just goes to show that there are some very good players here and it seems to me from what I saw that Fabi generally had the upper hand today. Also from looking at different positions and analyzing a little bit with him he seems to have a decent enough grasp on what’s going on. I’m just glad to be in the final and obviously playing Fabiano is always fun.”
“Definitely the toughest opponent you can play against,” admitted Caruana, “and he seems to be in pretty good shape but I’ll do my best and hopefully I can win the match.”
Niemann vs. Aronian 2.5-1.5
As the player who finished in fifth position in the round-robin, Niemann got to pick an opponent as well and went for Aronian, who was clearly out of form on Friday. That continued on Saturday as Niemann won the first game quite easily. In the early middlegame, Aronian started to make some inaccuracies and also spent too much time on the clock. After his 25th move he had just 34 seconds left vs. 9.5 minutes for Niemann. Just a few moves later, he resigned in a hopeless position.
Aronian got his act together quickly as he was helped by his opponent in game two: Niemann went for a dubious rook switch as early as move three. That rook was sidelined for most of the game and Aronian found some powerful moves to profit from it.
The third game basically decided the match when Aronian, in time trouble and a pawn down, failed to find the narrow path to a draw. Niemann only needed a draw in the final game and did so, keeping everything under control.
Erigaisi vs. Sindarov 3-1
This match started with two hard-fought draws, and it was Arjun especially who pushed things to the limit. In the second game, he ended up with two knights against a lone king and actually played on for another 32 moves where anyone else would have just called it a draw. Perhaps Arjun had missed the memo: “Despite recent progress in tablebases, a forced checkmate hasn’t been found yet.”
The third encounter in this match was this author’s favorite game of the day. It all started with a queen sortie to a5 as early as move 2, which had been suggested by Aronian in the joint analysis before the game. Arjun’s reaction to it was remarkable: he gave up a full rook, and initially, the engine didn’t understand it and the eval bar jumped up as if White had a winning advantage. It soon became clear that this wasn’t the case as the Indian GM followed up strongly, but so did Sindarov. We were witnessing a wonderful opening phase and more tactics followed later, with Arjun eventually emerging as the winner.
Assaubayeva vs. Kosteniuk 1-1
Alongside the actual world championship, today a $15,000 exhibition match between GMs Alexandra Kosteniuk and Bibisara Assaubayeva started with a spot in the 2026 Women’s Freestyle Chess World Championship at stake. That event is planned for later this year.
Two games were played on Saturday and two more will be played tomorrow, followed by a playoff in case of a tie. The score is equal indeed after one day of play, after both players won their white game.
Assaubayeva, the reigning three-time Women’s World Blitz Chess Champion, opened the score after a mistake from Kosteniuk rather late in the game. Now representing Switzerland, the Russian-born Kosteniuk, herself a former women’s world champion in both classical and rapid chess, should have moved a knight backward instead of forward when she would have had a playable position.
Assaubayeva’s loss was at least in part the result of self-damage. Her exchange sacrifice in the opening phase just wasn’t very correct. From a clearly lost position, she put up a great fight though and she was on the brink of drawing the game, until she missed a tactical shot that Kosteniuk, who has a sharp eye for such things, didn’t miss.
The final, the matches for third, fifth, and seventh places, and the third game in the Assaubayeva-Kosteniuk match will all start on Sunday at 3 p.m. CET (9 a.m. ET, 7:30 p.m. IST). At the end of the day, the 2026 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Champion will be crowned.
Written by Piter Doggers
Photos: Lennart Ootes and Steve Bonhage / Freestyle Chess
Official website: https://www.freestyle-chess.com/