It’s the tournament GM Magnus Carlsen won with 9/9 last year, and on Thursday evening he started the new edition with another win: the Grenke Chess Freestyle Open. It is part of the Grenke Chess Festival that boasts over 3,500 participants in Karlsruhe, Germany. Some players are playing regular chess from which they can still switch to freestyle before round five and take their points with them.
The first round saw few upsets, but CM Aleksander Kumala from Poland had quite the evening as he managed to hold Chess960 expert GM Levon Aronian to a draw. The strongest player to lose was GM Nikita Vitiugov, who was beaten by India’s FM Sreyas Payyappat.
Round two begins at 4 a.m. ET / 10:00 CEST / 1:30 p.m. IST on Friday, followed by round three on the same day at 10 a.m. ET / 16:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.
It was hard to believe that the world’s biggest open tournament, where amateurs and top players meet, could get even bigger. With 3,500+ participants, the organizers set a new record this year. It is superseded only by the SuperNationals in the U.S. where 4,600 children participated in 2025.
Like last year, the Karlsruhe Convention Center in Germany is hosting the Freestyle Open alongside a regular open classical tournament with three rating sections for each of the two formats: A, B, and C groups. Apart from a 60,000-euro first prize, there’s more at stake this year. The winner of the A-Open qualifies for the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2027, and the three highest-placed female players qualify for the FIDE Freestyle Women’s Chess World Championship 2026.
The Karlsruhe Convention Center is fully packed with chess players from all over the world. Photo: Carlotta Wessel/Grenke Chess.
Apart from having such a huge number of participants, the tournament is also special for the large number of top players. Below is the top 20, which includes the winner of the Reykjavik Open, GM Amin Tabatabaei.
No.
Fed
Title
Name
Rtg
1
GM
Carlsen, Magnus
2888
2
GM
Nepomniachtchi, Ian
2771
3
GM
Aronian, Levon
2765
4
GM
Niemann, Hans Moke
2760
5
GM
Keymer, Vincent
2754
6
GM
Duda, Jan-Krzysztof
2739
7
GM
Dominguez Perez, Leinier
2731
8
GM
Nihal Sarin,
2723
9
GM
Abdusattorov, Nodirbek
2716
10
GM
Fedoseev, Vladimir
2716
11
GM
Aravindh, Chithambaram VR.
2707
12
GM
Sarana, Alexey
2702
13
GM
Vachier-Lagrave, Maxime
2700
14
GM
Yakubboev, Nodirbek
2689
15
GM
Maghsoodloo, Parham
2687
16
GM
Liang, Awonder
2680
17
GM
Mendonca, Leon Luke
2676
18
GM
Mamedov, Rauf
2673
19
GM
Vitiugov, Nikita
2667
20
GM
Tabatabaei, M. Amin
2661
See full list of players here
Although the most recent freestyle events have switched to faster time controls, the open tournament in Karlsruhe still has the full 90 minutes for the entire game plus a 30-second increment starting on move one. This gave the players plenty of time to work out the details of the first round’s starting position, which is #906.
It was Wolfgang Grenke himself, the namesake of the main sponsor and a representative of Grenke AG, who made the first move on the board for Carlsen: 1.d4. The world number-one’s opponent was WGM Narmin Khalafova from Azerbaijan, who responded well to Carlsen’s aggressive but not completely convincing opening play, and generally played quite well until she made a big mistake on move 20.
Carlsen shakes hands with Wolfgang Grenke. Photo: Stev Bonhage/Grenke Chess.
Arguably the biggest upset was Aronian not winning his game, playing the white pieces on board three. His Polish opponent simply played an excellent game and avoided any trouble whatsoever. If anyone was better in the final phase, it was Black.
Aronian couldn’t break Kumala’s defense. Photo: Stev Bonhage/Grenke Chess.
As said, it was Vitiugov who had the dubious honor of being the highest-rated grandmaster to start with a loss. The English (former Russian) grandmaster actually was close to winning for quite some time but had already lost most of his advantage when he made a terrible blunder that dropped the exchange.
Below is our Game of the Day, a nice win by GM Parham Maghsoodloo, annotated by GM Rafael Leitao.
At the time of publication, the second round has just gotten underway. The remainder of the tournament will have two rounds per day on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
How to watch?
The Grenke Freestyle Chess Open is a classical tournament in the Freestyle Chess (Chess960) format that serves as a qualifier for the FIDE Freestyle Women’s Chess World Championship 2026 and the FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship 2027. The event takes place alongside a regular classical tournament, the Grenke Chess Open. The Freestyle Chess event is a nine-round Swiss with a time control of 90+30 for the entire game, with a prize fund of over 200,000 euros.
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