Niemann Wins Freestyle Event

The birthday boy is off to Las Vegas.

I’m not especially interested in Fischerrandom (aka Chess960, currently rebranded as “Freestyle”) but as YMMV here’s a report on such an event that finished yesterday with birthday boy Hans Niemann (now 22) winning to book his ticket to the Las Vegas Freestyle Grand Slam net month. Players there include Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Arjun Erigaisi, Fabiano Caruana, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov and a bunch of other super-GMs. (Shockingly, the world’s best chess players are also the best in Chess960; who would have guessed?)