GM Vincent Keymer won Freestyle Friday on May 8 by a full point, scoring 9.5/11 ahead of IM Marco Materia and GM Pranav Venkatesh. Keymer only scored 0.5/2 against Materia and Pranav individually, but won every other game to become the first player to win three Freestyle Fridays in 2026.
Technical issues during the initial tournament led to a fresh start one hour after the normal start time. For the second Friday of the month, Freestyle Chess delivered an official broadcast this week, with acclaimed commentator GM Peter Leko joining James Dash. (Because of the delay, the games that counted begin about 1:20:00 into the stream.)
Keymer was one of the strongest players early on, defeating GM Oleksandr Bortnyk after a one-move scare to become one of three players on 4/4 entering the first break, joined by GM Nodirbek Yakubboev and IM Khuong Duy Dau.
Yakubboev became the only player to reach 5/5 when he defeated Khuong, while Pranav toppled Keymer. Analyzing between rounds after the game, Leko noted 32.e5 as the turning point, when White blocked his own bishop.
In the next round, Pranav ended another perfect run by defeating Yakubboev, which put Pranav into the sole lead after Materia and Keymer drew. Khuong took the first shot at Pranav, and first place continued to churn when Khuong got the W with the knockout 23.Bc5.
Bortnyk joined Khuong in the lead with six points each, but in their ensuing matchup, Khuong took the pole position all to himself. Bortnyk struggled by the computer evaluation but had a wild equalizing resource just before losing on time.
Entering the second break, Pranav, Keymer, and Materia all trailed Khuong, who got Black against Keymer. He found himself in time trouble and could not extricate, and Keymer found himself back in the tournament lead for the first time since round four. Materia joined him, but Pranav could not, as he and Bortnyk drew after both missing chances. In round 10, Keymer got to play White against IM Viktor Skliarov but immediately got into serious trouble. Materia, with Black against Khuong, also found himself in dire straits. Materia did not survive, but Keymer got a huge break when Skliarov blundered a rook.
Keymer now led by himself for the first time, and only needed to maintain the lead position for one round, leading Pranav and Khuong by half a point and Materia by one point. He had played all three of them, so in the final round he came up against WGM Afruza Khamdamova instead. While he again found himself in a difficult early position, the situation wasn’t nearly as drastic this time, and he ended up winning in less than 30 moves to clean up the tournament.
Pranav’s third-place finish added to his lead in the Freestyle Friday Championship standings. Khuong was able to keep fourth place, his tiebreaks beating out WIM Melika Mohammadi, whose fifth place finish on eight points is the women’s record in Freestyle Friday. Mohammadi in fact defeated Khuong in the final round.
The next planned Freestyle Friday broadcast is for June 12, so be sure to tune in again then.
May 8 Freestyle Friday | Final Standings (Top 25)
| Rank | Seed | Fed | Title | Username | Name | Rating | Score | 1st Tiebreak |
| 1 | 4 | GM | @VincentKeymer | Vincent Keymer | 2743 | 9.5 | 72 | |
| 2 | 11 | IM | @scarabee43 | Marco Materia | 2630 | 8.5 | 74 | |
| 3 | 2 | GM | @vi_pranav | Pranav Venkatesh | 2810 | 8.5 | 73.5 | |
| 4 | 5 | IM | @ChessFighter_2011 | Dau Khuong Duy | 2685 | 8 | 77 | |
| 5 | 49 | WIM | @crazy_m_attack | Melika Mohammadi | 2408 | 8 | 57 | |
| 6 | 10 | GM | @dretch | Conrad Holt | 2598 | 7.5 | 68 | |
| 7 | 9 | GM | @Shield12 | Shamsiddin Vokhidov | 2630 | 7.5 | 67.5 | |
| 8 | 7 | GM | @Oleksandr_Bortnyk | Oleksandr Bortnyk | 2652 | 7.5 | 67 | |
| 9 | 21 | FM | @saumya402 | Jihan Tejas Shah | 2472 | 7 | 69.5 | |
| 10 | 3 | GM | @aquarium76 | Nodirbek Yakubboev | 2726 | 7 | 69 | |
| 11 | 34 | FM | @KZ_Champ_GM | Alimzhan Zhauynbay | 2415 | 7 | 64 | |
| 12 | 38 | IM | @viktorskliarov | Viktor Skliarov | 2377 | 7 | 62 | |
| 13 | 41 | IM | @Fh2411 | Le Thao Nguyen Pham | 2356 | 7 | 62 | |
| 14 | 45 | IM | @bazar-wokzal | Nikolai Vlassov | 2334 | 7 | 60.5 | |
| 15 | 30 | WGM | @FARIZA2018 | Afruza Khamdamova | 2411 | 7 | 59 | |
| 16 | 28 | FM | @RoseAtwell | Rose Atwell | 2406 | 6.5 | 65.5 | |
| 17 | 33 | FM | @GM_path | Aldiyar Zhauynbay | 2396 | 6.5 | 61 | |
| 18 | 15 | GM | @Anton_Demchenko | Anton Demchenko | 2509 | 6.5 | 61 | |
| 19 | 44 | IM | @Natalya_Buksa | Nataliya Buksa | 2365 | 6.5 | 58.5 | |
| 20 | 50 | FM | @ColinFederer | Colin Federer | 2310 | 6.5 | 51 | |
| 21 | 13 | IM | @SahibSinghKnight | Sahib Singh | 2525 | 6.5 | 50.5 | |
| 22 | 43 | FM | @samdanov | Samdan Samdanov | 2320 | 6 | 57 | |
| 23 | 40 | NM | @Candidates14 | Truong An Khang Nguyen | 2321 | 6 | 57 | |
| 24 | 25 | GM | @alexrustemov | Alexander Rustemov | 2403 | 6 | 56.5 | |
| 25 | 48 | IM | @ural58 | Alexander Reprintsev | 2315 | 6 | 55.5 |
(Full final standings.)
Prizes: Keymer $400, Materia $250, Pranav $150, Khuong $100, Mohammadi $100.
Freestyle Friday is Chess.com’s weekly tournament dedicated to Freestyle Chess for titled players. The tournament begins at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time/17:00 Central European/20:30 Indian Standard Time.
