Pranav Fourth Freestyle Friday Championship Victor

GM Pranav Venkatesh won his first Freestyle Friday of the new Freestyle Friday Championship on March 13, taking it outright with 9.5/11, as four different players have now won the first four tournaments of the new stakes (qualification for the 2027 FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship).

The victory was Pranav’s second overall and second this year, the first coming January 26. GMs Oleksandr Bortnyk and Parham Maghsoodloo scored nine points each to finish second and third as Bortnyk continues to lead the Championship Standings by a solid margin, 26-14 over Pranav now in second. GM Anna Muzychuk won today’s women’s prize and moved just past GM Alexandra Kosteniuk for the women’s standings lead, 28-27.

Bortnyk, who has been in the thick of every Freestyle Friday since the Championship began, was one of two players to hit 5/5, the other being GM Nodirbek Yakubboev. To start the sixth round, Bortnyk needed 58 seconds to decide on his first move and was already under a minute by move five, but he nonetheless moved to 6/6 in dominant fashion.

Andreikin and Pranav stood half a point back after defeating GMs Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ian Nepomniachtchi, respectively. In round seven, Bortnyk stayed perfect by checkmating Andreikin, while Pranav was able to stay in striking distance after grinding down GM Benjamin Bok in a pawn-up rook and opposite-color bishop ending. Maghsoodloo and GM Aravindh Chithambaram, the latter despite missing the first round, were on six points.

But Bortnyk’s lead did not survive into the second break, as Pranav only needed 18 moves to win a decisive amount of material after Bortnyk missed that Pranav’s a4-bishop was protected. Bortnyk resigned a few moves later after an intentional Botez Gambit, trying to induce an oversight from Pranav… along the exact same diagonal Bortnyk had just overlooked himself. The desperate ploy didn’t work.

Bortnyk still had second place to himself with 7/8, after Maghsoodloo and Aravindh played a 119-move draw. In the ninth round, Black took an edge on all top three boards. White fought back in all three games, but ultimately could not change any of the results from their early direction. Pranav thus held his lead with a win over GM Arseniy Nesterov, with Maghsoodloo defeating Bortnyk and Aravindh toppling GM Jose Martinez (below), both of them hitting 7.5 (Aravindh in just eight rounds) to trail Pranav by a point. Bortnyk and Andreikin each had 7/9.

With a chance to clinch the tournament early, Pranav took Black against Maghsoodloo. Maghsoodloo briefly had winning chances, but Pranav held on to draw. Bortnyk, meanwhile, got a miracle win on time in an otherwise doomed situation against Aravindh, knocking the Indian player from contention.

With Pranav on nine points and Bortnyk and Maghsoodloo on eight, but all three of them having played each other already, the tournament would come down to three different games: Pranav vs. GM Sina Movahed, Andreikin vs. Maghsoodloo, and Bortnyk vs. GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov. The other three could only play spoiler, of course, as none could catch Pranav. The situation also meant that Pranav just needed a draw against Movahed to clinch the event. While Bortnyk and Maghsoodloo (below) both won their games, Maghsoodloo taking second place over Bortnyk on tiebreaks, Pranav indeed held his draw and took the victory.

March 13 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings.)