Carlsen Wins Group, Joined By Caruana, Keymer, Abdusattorov In Semifinals

Carlsen may have given up the classical world championship title, but he’s the current holder of the FIDE rapid and blitz titles and would love to add a third. How seriously he was taking the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship was clear from his irritation at a press conference being held just an hour before the games were set to begin.

Magnus isn’t thrilled at having a press conference an hour before the games begin! #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/AEZ4NIol3s

— chess24 (@chess24com) February 13, 2026

It was partly because of the format. In South Africa two months ago no one was eliminated after the first day’s group stage, which only decided the knockout pairings. This time, however, if you finished in the bottom half your chance at playing for $100,000 and the world championship title would be gone. “I like the fact that it’s cut-throat and it’s not going to be easy to come through for anybody!” said Carlsen.

I like the fact that it’s cut-throat and it’s not going to be easy to come through for anybody!

—Magnus Carlsen on the Group Stage

That’s how it proved, with only a point ultimately separating first and fifth spots, and no one sure of their place in the Semifinals before the final round. In the end, however, Carlsen came through with the only +3 score.

The Norwegian’s day was jam-packed with drama. In the first game, a grudge match against Niemann, he spoiled a completely winning position in the middlegame and, short on time, took a draw at the end when there were still ways to play for more.

The second game would sum up Carlsen’s day, however, as he kept finding clever traps which his opponents stumbled into. Sindarov seemed to have navigated his way out of a difficult position, but 49.b3! was a devilish move, building a checkmating net so that the rook coming to b7 would end the game. Sindarov missed the point.

The Uzbek star took a second to assess the situation and resigned on the spot.

Magnus grabs a 1st win after Sindarov blunders into mate-in-4 after putting up great defense! https://t.co/lKbsuwrxsi pic.twitter.com/ETFXsab6wW

— chess24 (@chess24com) February 13, 2026

Sindarov never recovered from that blow as he lost two more of the next three games and was knocked out of contention for the Semifinals. 

Carlsen, meanwhile, continued where he’d left off by turning around a losing position against Aronian with a sneaky double attack with his knight, making an intense 87-move draw against Keymer, and then almost sealing a spot in the Semifinals with an impressive win over one of his great rivals, Caruana. The U.S. star had survived waves of pressure only to fall into a checkmating net at the very end. “Endgame magic!” was how GM Judit Polgar described it.

“Endgame magic!” says Judit as Carlsen conjures a checkmating attack vs. Caruana to almost guarantee his spot in tomorrow’s Semifinals! https://t.co/SrgIJJPpeU pic.twitter.com/Xep6728QCD

— chess24 (@chess24com) February 13, 2026

That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.

With four points and only two rounds to go, Carlsen was almost guaranteed a spot in the Semifinals (in fact in the end 4/7 was enough), which may have made him vulnerable in an extraordinary penultimate-round game. Arjun made nine (!) good moves only with pawns before he moved a piece on move 10 only to grab one of Carlsen’s pawns with a winning position. There was no way back for the world number-one.

That stumble theoretically meant Carlsen could be dragged into a four-player playoff to finish in the top half of the table, but instead he confidently achieved a much better position against Abdusattorov in the final round and then steered it to the draw he needed to guarantee qualification—and in fact sole first place.

Carlsen is joined in the Semifinals by three players who all won three games and lost two. Keymer looked to have excellent chances of taking first place when he bounced back from a round-one loss to Arjun by demolishing Aronian in round two, before adding wins against Niemann and Caruana. A final-round draw would have matched Carlsen, while a win would have meant clear first place, but instead Sindarov ground out an endgame win.

Caruana finished third, but was the one qualifier who went into the final round needing a win, after a fine start—his wins over Abdusattorov and Niemann were spoiled by consecutive losses to Carlsen and Keymer. That made the final game all the sweeter, however, as the U.S. number one scored a crushing win over Arjun—the pins on the a1-h8 diagonal were the stuff of nightmares! 

A great win for Caruana, but a bitter blow for Arjun, who would have qualified himself with a win. The Indian star finished the tournament with three wins, four losses, and no draws. 

The final spot in the Semifinals went to Abdusattorov, fresh off his victory in the Tata Steel Chess Masters. The Uzbek star twice bounced straight back from losses, most memorably in a spectacular win against his countryman Sindarov—you could speculate Sindarov winning the World Cup and qualifying for the Candidates Tournament has given Abdusattorov extra motivation! 

We saw that Arjun missed out on at least a playoff after failing to win in the final round, and the same was true of Niemann, who never got winning chances in a draw against Aronian and could have more regrets about the penultimate round, when he missed a win at the end of a game he’d earlier been losing against Sindarov. 

That ultimately helped neither player, while Aronian, the winner of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Finals in South Africa, finished rock-bottom on 2/7 after four losses. He explained “a day of blundering” with “I’m just out of practice—I haven’t played for two months and this is the result.”

He’s one of the four players now competing for at best fifth place and a $25,000 top prize, but said that’s not a problem for him: “I love the game, I love playing, I don’t care if I’m playing for winning or playing for fifth place, it doesn’t matter.”

I love the game, I love playing, I don’t care if I’m playing for winning or playing for fifth place!

—Levon Aronian

For the remaining two days the format is simple, with knockout matches of four 25+10 games followed, if needed, by a 10-minute bidding armageddon game. It’s Carlsen-Abdusattorov and Keymer-Caruana in the all-important Semifinals.