The inaugural Chesstival,where chess collided with basketball, took place Sunday at Wynn Las Vegas, bringing together NBA players and chess grandmasters. Magnus Carlsen and Derrick Rose lost in their Head & Hand final match early in quarterfinals against Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Vidit Gujrath.

GM Magnus Carlsen

GM Magnus Carlsen

Freestyle and Classical chess Top-1 player

I think we got a little bit of difficult start… so we lost to better players unfortunately

The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Las Vegas takes place at Wynn Las Vegas from July 16-20, 2025. 16 players compete in the Freestyle Chess(Chess960 variant) for a $750,000 prize pool using round-robin and knockout format. The event serves as the third leg of the five-tournament Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.

Photo: Lennart Ootes/Freestyle Chess.