Two lessons that D Gukesh will have learned from winless Freestyle Chess Tour campaign in Weissenhaus

Gukesh Dommaraju had a forgettable run in the opening event of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus, Germany. Two months after being crowned the youngest world champion in Singapore and less than two weeks after nearly winning the Tata Steel Chess tournament, the 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster failed to win a single game in the Chess960 format.

Gukesh ended up finishing 8th out of 10 players at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort, getting knocked out in the quarter-finals before losing both of his 5th-8th classification matches. Out of the 17 games that he played in rapid as well as Classical time controls, the Chennai lad drew 11 and lost six.

Gukesh will have an opportunity to fight back in the second event of the lucrative tour in Paris, where compatriots Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandhaa – who beat him to the Tata Steel Chess title – will also be in action.

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However, before we turn our attention to the Paris leg, we take a look at two vital lessons that Gukesh will have learnt at the seaside resort located in Germany’s Baltic coast to the north:

Chess960 intuition

American Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura had recently explained that Gukesh's "biggest weakness" was the his intuition wasn’t that great especially when low on time, and struggles through calcutations.

“I would say probably the biggest weakness Gukesh currently has is that when he gets low on time, I don’t think his intuition is that great, and he simply couldn’t work through the calculations,” Nakamura, winner of the 2022 World Fischer Random Championship, told Chess.com.

Gukesh’s coach Grzegorz Gajewski, however, came to his defence, specifying that it was the “Chess960 intuition” that Gukesh needed to work on and not on his Classical intuition as he has proven himself to be a winning machine in that format recently.

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“In 960, calculation can be very misleading because you have to be careful about which moves you are calculating.

“So, yes, he needs to improve his intuition. but by intuition I mean Chess960 intuition. Because many moves that intuitively seem fine in classical chess are just pure mistakes in 960,” the Polish Grandmaster had said in a live stream conducted by ChessBase India.

Learning from other players

A common sight at the Freestyle Chess Tour event in Weissenhaus was players gathering around a board discussing possible openings after the arrangement of pieces on the board was made known just 15 minutes before a game. Among the players who was frequently seen discussing tactics with legends of the game such as Magnus Carlsen was German GM Vincent Keymer.

Keymer would go on to pull off a stunning victory over Carlsen in the semi-finals before defeating Fabiano Caruana in the final to win the $200,000 cash prize.

even super GMs have to start from scratch with new freestyle chess positions! 🔥 #FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/NezWskv0bH

— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 10, 2025

Gukesh, on the other hand, was seen sitting by a board all by himself, contemplating his moves. Given he isn’t as used to the unpredictable format as he is when it comes to Classical chess, maybe attending those brainstorming sessions might have helped.

“I think it can only be to your disadvantage if you don’t analyze together. I don’t know why Gukesh doesn’t analyze with Fabiano. To me, that’s just insane. Whether I’m analyzing with Fabiano, or even if I’m not, I look at his game, and I just try to follow what he does. You know, I just believe in Fabiano, so it’s much easier if you can do that,” Nakamura, who finished fifth in Weissenhaus, added.