The round robin: 2026 Freestyle Chess World Championship
Before the knockout stage, eight players played each other once — 28 games over seven rounds — to set the bracket. All 28 results below; eight of the games, real moves, replayable.
Results, round by round
| Round | White | Black | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Erigaisi | Keymer | 1-0 |
| 1 | Abdusattorov | Caruana | 0-1 |
| 1 | Niemann | Carlsen | ½-½ |
| 1 | Sindarov | Aronian | 1-0 |
| 2 | Keymer | Aronian | 1-0 |
| 2 | Carlsen | Sindarov | 1-0 |
| 2 | Caruana | Niemann | 1-0 |
| 2 | Erigaisi | Abdusattorov | 0-1 |
| 3 | Abdusattorov | Keymer | ½-½ |
| 3 | Niemann | Erigaisi | 1-0 |
| 3 | Sindarov | Caruana | ½-½ |
| 3 | Aronian | Carlsen | 0-1 |
| 4 | Keymer | Carlsen | ½-½ |
| 4 | Caruana | Aronian | ½-½ |
| 4 | Erigaisi | Sindarov | 1-0 |
| 4 | Abdusattorov | Niemann | 0-1 |
| 5 | Niemann | Keymer | 0-1 |
| 5 | Sindarov | Abdusattorov | 0-1 |
| 5 | Aronian | Erigaisi | 1-0 |
| 5 | Carlsen | Caruana | 1-0 |
| 6 | Keymer | Caruana | 1-0 |
| 6 | Erigaisi | Carlsen | 1-0 |
| 6 | Abdusattorov | Aronian | 1-0 |
| 6 | Niemann | Sindarov | ½-½ |
| 7 | Sindarov | Keymer | 1-0 |
| 7 | Aronian | Niemann | ½-½ |
| 7 | Carlsen | Abdusattorov | ½-½ |
| 7 | Caruana | Erigaisi | 1-0 |
Full results, all 28 games. Below are eight of them, chosen for what they set up or what happened on the board — not the other 20, which are real and on record but not walked through here.
Carlsen-Sindarov, round 2 — Carlsen wins
Carlsen with White. A piece sacrifice on move 4 (bishop takes rook) won the exchange for a pawn; the position stayed sharp for fifty moves until a pushed g-pawn queened.
Aronian-Carlsen, round 3 — Carlsen wins
Aronian with White. The longest game of the eight here — 73 moves — a knight ending that ran on for dozens of moves with an extra pawn for Black before Carlsen finally converted it.
Carlsen-Caruana, round 5 — Carlsen wins
Carlsen with White. Queens came off by move 7 straight into an endgame; a 35-move-long single-rook-and-minor-piece grind that Carlsen's technique eventually won. The two would meet again, for the title, in the final two rounds later.
Erigaisi-Carlsen, round 6 — Erigaisi wins
Erigaisi with White. The one loss on Carlsen's card in the whole tournament: a queenside pawn storm from move 5 turned into a real attack, and a queen infiltrated to g7 to force resignation in 28 moves — quick, by this event's standards.
Abdusattorov-Caruana, round 1 — Caruana wins
Abdusattorov with White. A queen trade on move 15 left an ending where Caruana's extra exchange decided it — the two would meet again, for real stakes, in the 3rd-place match and this same tournament's final.
Abdusattorov-Niemann, round 4 — Niemann wins
Abdusattorov with White. An exchange sacrifice by Black on move 14 (bishop takes knight, giving up a piece for a pawn to open lines) built into a long ending where Niemann's connected passed pawns on the queenside eventually broke through.
Keymer-Aronian, round 2 — Keymer wins
Keymer with White. A methodical squeeze — Keymer's rook and knight worked the board for over fifty moves before Aronian's position finally gave way in a king-and-pawn race he couldn't win.
Caruana-Erigaisi, round 7 — Caruana wins
Caruana with White. A queen sortie to h6 on move 10 pressured Black's kingside for the rest of the game; a piece dropped on move 23 and Caruana closed it out by move 32 — his last result before facing Carlsen in the final.