Carlsen Advances To Grand Final, Sends Arjun, Nakamura To Losers Bracket
World number-one GM Magnus Carlsen punched his ticket to the Grand Final of the 2025 Chessable Masters. With Black in armageddon, he drew GM Arjun Erigaisi and then beat GM Hikaru Nakamura 2.5-0.5 with a game to spare. Both Arjun and Nakamura will have a second chance to reach the Grand Final through the Losers Bracket.
The following players were eliminated in the Losers Bracket: GMs Fabiano Caruana, Vladislav Artemiev, Wei Yi, Anish Giri, Andrey Esipenko, and Yu Yangyi. The four remaining players, besides Nakamura, will meet in the Losers Quarterfinals: GM Arjun Erigaisi vs. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi and GM Alireza Firouzja vs. GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Nakamura advances directly to the Losers Final.
Day three of the Playoffs—featuring the Losers Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Final—is on Thursday, February 20, starting at 11:00 a.m. ET / 17:00 CET / 9:30 p.m. IST. The event caps off on Friday with the Grand Final between the last two players standing.
Playoffs Winners Bracket
Playoffs Losers Bracket
Winners Bracket: Carlsen Does It Again
Carlsen is the only player to win the Champions Chess Tour every year since its inception in 2020. Carlsen has won seven out of nine Grand Finals in the last two years—importantly, he is also very likely to qualify for the Esports World Cup.
Carlsen 2.5-2.5 Arjun
The match against Arjun was the closest, and Carlsen won it only in the armageddon by drawing with the black pieces. It was going more or less smoothly for the former world champion until the last regular game.
In game one, Carlsen won a knight endgame with an extra pawn (though Arjun had chances to draw). After a clean draw in game two, Carlsen nearly won again when Arjun miraculously defended a nearly hopeless-looking position, down an exchange and a pawn.
Carlsen later said of this game: "It's funny that rook against bishop is generally considered quite easy to win [with three pawns on the same side of the board], but he chose the most resilient setup and it wasn't that easy." He'd realized what he'd done right after he made the mistake, but it was too late to try again.
In game four, Arjun incredibly won on demand, from an equal endgame, to reach armageddon.
"It turned into a complete mess, and I was very lucky to get out of it with a win," said the world number-one in the interview after the match. In the end, Carlsen managed to hold the draw, but if Arjun had found the last chance 40.Rb7+!—with five minutes against two with no increment—we may have had another winner. The Indian star could have won earlier as well:
Nakamura 3-2 Firouzja
The other semifinal match also went down to armageddon, which Nakamura won with the black pieces against Firouzja.
Nakamura found a sweet tactic, overlooked by the French number-one, to take the early lead.
Firouzja struck back in game two, and after two draws we went off to armageddon. Nakamura, who was admittedly worse, got to finish the game with a queen sacrifice that commentator GM Aman Hambleton praised as "one of the nicest moves that I've almost ever seen, especially in a speed-chess format."
You can watch Nakamura's recap video for his thoughts about the games as well.
Carlsen 2.5-0.5 Nakamura
It's been a while. The last time Carlsen and Nakamura played a match on Chess.com was in the 2023 Champions Chess Tour Finals. After the match, Carlsen said Nakamura didn't bring his best game and guessed why:
I think Hikaru had a very tough, emotional match against Alireza so I think he was not quite able to readjust. It felt like he was a bit nervous, a bit off. It wasn't perfect from me either, but it seems that starting with White in the first game, I'm able to put a lot of pressure.
Carlsen wrapped it up in three games, not needing a fourth. Game one, with Carlsen playing the Jobava London, was an opening disaster for the American GM. 13.e4! followed by 14.exd5!, "sacrificing" a piece that cannot be taken, led to a winning attack—that then led to an endgame two pawns up.
In game two, Nakamura just barely managed to save a piece-down endgame in the time scramble. But he didn't survive again in the third game, although he managed to stir up plenty of complications and objective paths to equality. Even after blundering a piece and being a rook down (for five pawns), Carlsen managed to take the full point. GM Rafael Leitao analyzes this exciting game below.
The world number-one, who will be speaking on Joe Rogan's podcast this evening, has also announced he's parting ways with the infamous jeans—for charity. The unwashed jeans are up for sale, and smiling in the post-game interview, Carlsen commented, "It's certainly up there with one of the more famous contemporary jeans, that's for sure."
Losers Bracket: 5 Players Left Standing
There are five players left standing in the Losers Bracket. Nepomniachtchi and Duda are the two players who won two matches on Wednesday to keep their hopes alive.
Nepomniachtchi defeated two countrymen on his road to the Losers Quarterfinals, first Artemiev 2-1 and then Esipenko 1.5-0.5. His finest win was in game one against Artemiev, where by move 15 he already had a winning position. It was a dominant, one-sided game where Nepomniachtchi never let go of the edge.
Meanwhile, Duda defeated Wei 1.5-1.5 by drawing the armageddon game and then defeated the other Chinese GM, Yu, 2-1 with a white win in armageddon. Again, the best game was his very first, where Duda may have been worse out of the opening but his resilience saw him through. With the maneuver 22.Na4 and 23.Nc5, he was already better.
Thursday will be all about the Losers Bracket. We will learn which of the five players will reach the Grand Final against Carlsen. Stay tuned for the last two days of this event!
The Chessable Masters is the first of two legs in the 2025 Champions Chess Tour. On February 17, the world's best players competed in the Play-in, a nine-round Swiss with a 10-minute time control (no increment). The top eight qualify, with eight invited players, for the Playoffs, a four-day event on February 18-21 with a prize fund of $150,000. The top-12 on the CCT leaderboard make it to the Esports World Cup in the summer of 2025.
Previous coverage:
- Playoffs Day 1: Firouzja Edges Out Caruana, Advances With Carlsen, Nakamura, Arjun To Winners Semis
- Play-In: Wei Yi Wins Swiss, Qualifies With 7 Others For Playoffs
- Chessable Masters Opens 2025 Champions Chess Tour Spearheaded By 5-Time Champion Carlsen
- Chess Makes Historic Debut At Esports World Cup 2025 With $1.5 Million Prize Pool
