Freestyle Chess Tour Highlights: Gukesh holds Firouzja to 91-move draw; Keymer, Carlsen, Hikaru win

That’s it from us in our coverage of Day 7 of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus, Germany. Do join us tomorrow for the final day of the event in which home favourite Vincent Keymer will be aiming to complete a fairytale triumph and D Gukesh will be hoping to sign off with at least one victory.

For now, it’s a good bye from us!

What a fightback from Gukesh as he holds Firouzja to a 91-move draw in Game 1 of their seventh-place playoff game in Weissenhaus. With that, the action on the penultimate day of the Weissenhaus event comes to an end!

Here’s what the board looks like at the end of the Gukesh vs Firouzja game:

Nakamura collects a second consecutive victory as he defeats Abdusattorov in 62 moves in Game 1 of their fifth-place playoff clash in Weissenhaus.

Here’s what the board looks like at the end of Game 1:

D Gukesh is waging another marathon battle today, this time in the seventh-place playoff against Alireza Firouzja. Can he top the 103-move draw against Hikaru Nakamura in their classification game on Wednesday?

Gukesh appeared done and dusted just a while ago, having mere seconds left on the clock compared to 16 for Firouzja. The Indian GM, however, exhibits the same fighting spirit that helped him defeat Ding Liren in the World Championship, as Game 1 of the seventh-place playoff goes past 60 moves! Both players have a little over three minutes left now.

Gukesh hasn’t given up just yet despite having less than a minute left on the clock compared to Firouzja, who has 16 minutes left in his account. But looking at the state of the game, it appears as if the latter is on the verge of going 1-0 up in the seventh-place playoff.

We have another result today, with German Grandmaster Vincent Keymer defeating Fabiano Caruana in Game 1 of the final in 33 moves to go 1-0 up! Even though he made a bad call in his 33rd move (Ra6), Caruana raises the white flag due to the massive time advantage that his opponent had over him along with his advantageous position.

Here’s what the board looks like at the end of Game 1:

Carlsen is back to winning ways as he defeats Sindarov in 28 moves in Game 1 of the third-place playoff game in Weissenhaus.

Here’s what the board looks like at the end of Game 1, in which the Uzbekistani Grandmaster resigns despite playing with white pieces:

Magnus Carlsen currently is leading in Game 1 of his third-place playoff clash against Javokhir Sindarov. Carlsen had suffered a shock loss against Keymer in the semi-finals, but appears to have regained his form on the penultimate day of the event.

After bishop and queen, Gukesh decides to offer Firouzja a check with his rook after moving the piece to b2 in his 22nd move. The Iranian-French GM responds by moving his rook to d2 right next to his king, blocking Gukesh’s path and forcing him to retreat it to b6.

The eval bar, meanwhile, has suddenly tilted towards Firouzja.

Gukesh has less than five minutes left on the clock while Firouzja has nine times as much time in hand. The evaluation bar is currently level between black and white after 25 moves but the time factor surely will have an impact on the final result.

After the drama-filled scenes between moves 10-15, Gukesh decides to give Firouzja a couple of checks – first with his bishop (Bf3+) in his 18th move and then with his queen in the 22nd (Qa4+).

Gukesh and Firouzja are on a capturing spree between moves 10 and 15 – with at least one capture per move during this phase. Firouzja also appears to have stabilised his position on the board after a couple of blunders.

Here are the moves so far in Game 1 of the 7th-place playoff:

1. c4 Nf6

2. Nf3 c5

3. b3 e5

4. Qf5 d6

5. g4 h6

6. h4 b5

7. g5 Be4

8. Qh3 Nh5

9. e3 Qb7

10. Be2 bxc4

11. bxc4 Ng6

12. Nxe5 Nxe5

13. Bxe5 Rxe5

14. Bxh5 hxg5

15. hxg5 Rxg5

After a decent start, Alireza Firouzja has handed the advantage to D Gukesh on a silver platter by committing not one but two blunders (8. Qh3 and 12. Nxe5). Gukesh has done his bit to boost his position by moving his knight to g6 in his 11th move.

In Game 1 of the biggest game of the day – the final betweeen Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen’s conquerer Vincent Keymer, both players have made a few captures in the first 10 moves with Keymer also moving his Queen to the right flank of the board, close to Caruana’s back line.

Moves so far:

1. c4 Nf6

2. Nf3 b6

3. b4 c5

4. Be5 d6

5. Bxf6 exf6

6. Qxh7 Ng6

7. e3 cxb4

In Game 1 between D Gukesh and Alireza Firouzja, the latter has a time advantage of nearly an hour over the reigning world champion, with Gukesh left with a little over 30 minutes on the clock after playing just nine moves.

Gukesh hasn’t been in great touch in Weissenhaus so far and makes an early error in just his third move against Firouzja today, as his decision to push his ‘E’ file pawn forward tilts the balance of the game in the Iranian-French GM’s favour.

Alireza Firouzja, playing with white pieces, opts for a c4 opening – a move that is mirrored by Vincent Keymer in the final against Fabiano Caruana. On the other hand, Uzbekistani Grandmasters Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Javokhir Sindarov opt for an e4 opening in their respective games against Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen respectively.

D Gukesh responds by moving his knight forward (Nf6) in his first move.

Here’s what the layout of the board for today’s games looks like (notice how white has a slight advantage on the eval bar):

Vincent Keymer is still keeping the German flag flying high at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort after pulling off what arguably is the biggest victory of his career so far – defeating Magnus Carlsen in Game 1 of their semi-final clash on Wednesday before sealing his passage into the final with a draw the following day.

“Mostly I’m relieved that I managed to survive this very tough game and also it’s for me personally an incredible achievement to beat Magnus in a match,” Keymer told Take Take Take after his victory over Carlsen.

World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura feels world champion D Gukesh’s “poor intuition” and inability to come up with solutions under time pressure has been his undoing at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus.

“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 told Chess.com after beating Gukesh in their 5th-8th classification game on Wednesday.

Reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju is yet to collect a single victory at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus, collecting 10 draws and five defeats across the rapid and classical formats so far.

Here’s a day-by-day breakup of Gukesh’s run in Weissenhaus:

Day 1

Round 1: Drew against Nodirbek Abdusattorov

Round 2: Lost to Alireza Firouzja

Round 3: Drew against Levon Aronian

Round 4: Drew against Javokhir Sindarov

Round 5: Drew against Hikaru Nakamura

Day 2

Round 6: Drew against Fabiano Caruana

Round 7: Drew against Vincent Keymer

Round 8: Drew against Vladimir Fedoseev

Round 9: Lost to Magnus Carlsen.

Day 3

Quarter-final, Game 1: Lost to Fabiano Caruana

Day 4

Quarter-final, Game 2: Lost to Fabiano Caruana

Day 5

5th-8th classification match, Game 1: Drew against Hikaru Nakamura

Day 6

5th-8th classification match, Game 2: Drew against Hikaru Nakamura

5th-8th classification match, rapid tie-breaker Game 1: Drew against Hikaru Nakamura

5th-8th classification match, rapid tie-breaker Game 2: Lost to Hikaru Nakamura.

Day 7 of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus will witness the opening Classical game for the following fixtures

— Vincent Keymer vs Fabiano Caruana, final

— Magnus Carlsen vs Javokhir Sindarov, 3rd-place playoff

— Hikaru Nakamura vs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, 5th-place playoff

— D Gukesh vs Alireza Firouzja, 7th-place playoff

D Gukesh will have one last shot at signing off on a winning note from this event when he faces Alireza Firouzja in the seventh-place playoff, the first game of which takes place on Thursday.

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