World champion Dommaraju Gukesh saw his bid to win the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Weissenhaus, Germany come to an end with a quarterfinal loss to Fabiano Caruna. Having lost game 1 of the quarterfinal yesterday, Gukesh had to win on demand, but following Caruana's excellent opening with white, the 18-year-old Indian had no option but to resign early in game 2, thus conceding the quarterfinal tie to the world no. 2.
While Gukesh is out of the quarterfinal, his time in Weissenhaus still continues, as he will battle for the fifth to eighth ranking spots, playing the loser of the Hikaru Nakamura vs Jakovhir Sindarov quarterfinal tie. Fifth place gets $50,000 and 10 points, while eighth gets $10,000 and 4 points.
Freestyle Chess' randomized back rank saw all four quarterfinals begin with position 270, which has knights at a1 and d1, rooks at b1 and h1, the king at c1, the queen at e1, and bishops at f1 and g1. Bringing their knights and pawns out in a symmetrical opening, Gukesh, playing with black, deviated in the third move itself, and was drawn into going a pawn down as Caruana controlled the centre of the board with a knight and pawn.
Gukesh responded with an inaccurate 7...Bxa2 and that opened up the board for Caruana's rook on a1, which later claimed plenty of material as the pair traded piece after piece. Despite castling in the 13th move, Gukesh was already a pawn down and in a very disadvantageous position having been lured into a couple of poor trades. By the seventeenth move, it was clear that it was a two-result game, with Gukesh's best result likely to be a draw.
Caruana castled in the following move, and given that left little to no possibility for Gukesh to get his needed win, he resigned, thus going down 0-2 to the world no. 2 in the quarterfinal.
Gukesh next faces one of Hikaru Nakamura and Jakovhir Sindarov in the ranking round, although, at the time of writing, that game looked destined for two draws and tie-breaks.
It has been quite the poor outing for the reigning world champion, who was caught out by freestyle chess's format that negates preparation - one of Gukesh's strengths. Having survived by the skin of his teeth to get into the knockouts in eighth place after the round-robin stage with rapid time controls, Gukesh was expected to fare better in classical time controls against Caruana - a player he had the edge over in recent times in classical chess. However, two comprehensive losses - the second of which had Caruana play a startling 97% accuracy to Gukesh's 85.6%, have made it apparent that the 18-year-old is still coming to grips with this new format.
Coupled with the heartbreaking loss in tie-breaks to R Praggnanandhaa in the final of the Tata Steel Chess tournament a week ago, it has been a sobering month and more for Gukesh after the highs of becoming the world champion.
Results of Quarterfinal (Game 2), Freestyle Chess Weissenhaus:
D Gukesh 0-2 Fabiano Caruana
Magnus Carslen vs Nodirbek Abdusattorov (ongoing 1-0)
Alireza Firouzja vs Vincent Keymer (ongoing, 0-1)
Jakovhir Sindarov vs Hikaru Nakamura (ongoing, 0.5-0.5)