Magnus Carlsen defeats Hans Niemann, Hikaru Nakamura to win 1st ever Freestyle Friday

Magnus Carlsen scythed through a heavyweight field to win the first-ever Freestyle Friday tournament on Chess.com, in an event that saw him needing to take down players like arch-rival Hans Niemann, World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura and Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Magnus Carlsen scored nine wins in his first nine games, before slowing down and losing his final game to Ukraine GM Oleksandr Bortnyk. But he emerged victorious via the tiebreaks.
Magnus Carlsen defeated Nakamura in seventh round after 65 moves to set up a much-anticipated clash with Hans Niemann.
Magnus Carlsen took down the American GM in 56 moves while playing with black pieces. Then, in the next game he defeated Nepomniachtchi who has fought two World Chess Championship battles against Carlsen.
In the end, Carlsen scored 9.5 points, finishing ahead of GM Oleksandr Bortnyk on tiebreaks after Bortnyk scored an upset victory over the world no 1 in the final round.
Remarkably, Fabiano Caruana was also one of the contenders in the event. Caruana is currently in the Dutch town of Wijk aan Zee, where he is competing in the Tata Steel chess tournament.
In fact, before Caruana played in Freestyle Friday, he played out a short draw with Arjun Erigaisi lasting 30 moves.
What is Freestyle Friday?
The Freestyle Friday event saw 476 players competing. Being held for the first time, Freestyle Friday is an online event where every player plays 11 rounds in the Swiss format. Each game with a 3+1 time control. Games are played in the Freestyle (Chess960) variant.
The event will be played every Friday, with titled players eligible to compete.
What is freestyle chess?
Freestyle chess is a variant of chess that goes many names: Fischer Random Chess, Chess 9LX and Chess 960.
The variant was popularised the legendary chess star Bob Fischer in 1996. In regular chess, positions of pieces on the back ranks are fixed: the rooks are stationed on the corners, the knights start on the b and g files, the bishops on the c and f files. Both kings are on e file squares while the queens start on d squares.
But freestyle chess adds a tw: the positions of minor and major pieces on the backranks are shuffled, which largely eliminates bookish opening theory and forces players to rely on their own understanding of the position and their skills.