After three drawn tiebreak games in the finals of the Open section, Magnus Carlsen proposed and Ian Nepomniachtchi agreed to share first place.

[5] On 27 December, defending champion Magnus Carlsen declared that he would not participate due to previously having been fined and penalized for violating the dress code by wearing jeans during the World Rapid Chess Championship 2024.

[6][7] However, on 29 December, Carlsen reversed his decision and announced that he would indeed take part in the tournament, after FIDE relaxed its dresscode rules and allowed him to continue wearing jeans, which he did.

However, if Dubov had played Niemann and lost (rather than receiving a forfeit loss), he would have finished in 8th place by tiebreaks and advanced to the knockout stage.

After three tiebreak games ended in draws, Carlsen proposed to Nepomniachtchi that they share the championship, and asked an arbiter if such a thing would be possible.