Chess-Carlsen claims Freestyle Grand Slam title

Dec 9 : Magnus Carlsen secured the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour title on Tuesday by reaching the semi-finals of the South Africa Finals, clinching the season championship and the $100,000 bonus prize.

The world number one, who has given up on becoming classical chess world champion again after relinquishing his crown, endured a bumpy route into the last four.

He opened his quarter-final tie against American Fabiano Caruana with a loss after a costly blunder, leaving himself in a must-win situation with the black pieces. Carlsen forced tiebreaks, then won the first blitz game before closing out the match with a second victory.

World Cup winner Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan maintained the form that carried him through the round-robin stage, defeating Parham Maghsoodloo 2-0 after the Iranian grandmaster lost all seven of his games in the preliminaries.

German Vincent Keymer booked his ticket into the last four after drawing the first game with Arjun Erigaisi of India and calmly winning the second to progress.

Levon Aronian completed the semi-final lineup by eliminating fellow American Hans Niemann in tiebreaks.

The winner of the final leg of the year will collect $200,000 in prize money.