Living chess legend Magnus Carlsen has added a twenty-first FIDE world champion title to his collection—one he had not yet won. Besides being a five-time Classical World Champion, a six-time Rapid World Champion, and a nine-time Blitz World Champion, he managed today to expand his collection with his first World Championship title in the Fischer variant of chess, also known as Freestyle.

FIDE reached an agreement with the organizers of the Freestyle tournament series on an official World Championship in this variant, which took place this weekend under its auspices and was therefore a fully official and recognized tournament for the crown of the Fischer chess king.

Based on various qualification paths, eight super-grandmasters took part in the event. They first played a round-robin group stage at a 10+5 time control. The top four from this group stage advanced to the play-offs, while the bottom four were relegated to playing for places. The group stage ended as follows:

Magnus Carlsen 4.5

Vincent Keymer 4

Fabiano Caruana 4

Nodirbek Abdusattorov 4

Hans Niemann 3.5

Arjun Erigaisi 3

Javokhir Sindarov 3

Levon Aronian 2

The play-offs were played at the longer 25+10 time control, over four games. Carlsen, as the winner of the group stage, got the chance to choose his opponent for the semi-final and selected the young Uzbek. Both semi-final clashes thus offered battles of hungry youth against veteran experience, and in both cases the veterans ultimately prevailed. Neither of them needed any tie-breaks, and in the final the fans got a very attractive rematch of the 2018 World Championship match. And Caruana confirmed that he can still be a match for the phenomenal Norwegian—quite possibly the only player on the planet who can do so consistently. At the same time, however, he also confirmed his weaknesses: poor play in time trouble and lower psychological resilience—exactly the factors in which his opponent is, conversely, the best in the world. The first two games were balanced slugfests that ended in draws. The match was decided by the third game, in which Caruana played excellently and, after a mistake by Carlsen, reached a position he would win in 99 cases out of 100. The commentators were already expecting the Norwegian’s resignation and were already talking about what strategy he would choose for the fourth game, in which he would have to win. But something happened that we have seen so many times with this sporting phenomenon. Not only did Carlsen not resign—he stubbornly found the only moves to keep the position alive—Caruana passed up several clear wins, and as his time dwindled his nervousness began to show. In mutual time trouble he completely lost control of the position, and here the difference between these two players in this discipline was revealed. Carlsen turned the game around completely and, to the shock of the commentators and even himself, won the game. Caruana still managed to create some chances in the fourth game to equalize, but even that was not enough, and the draw meant that once again he had to bow to the skill of the Norwegian grandmaster.

After the final results of all placement matches, the tournament ended as follows:

1. Magnus Carlsen
2. Fabiano Caruana
3. Nodirbek Abdusattorov
4. Vincent Keymer
5. Hans Niemann
6. Arjun Erigaisi
7. Levon Aronian
8. Javokhir Sindarov

In the post-match interviews, the emotions each finalist was experiencing were very clearly visible. Caruana was visibly disappointed by yet another narrow failure in the fight for a world champion title, which he has not yet won in any chess discipline. In Fischer chess tournaments as well, he has already had to settle for second place several times. Fabiano is almost always near the top, but never quite at the very top. And it is clear that this is starting to become a pattern he will certainly want to change. From Carlsen, above all, there radiated relief, fatigue, and still a bit of surprise at how he managed to turn around the third game.

Magnus Carlsen is thus currently the holder of world champion titles in three disciplines—rapid chess, blitz chess, and Fischer chess.

Images taken from Chess.com