 "Fabiano Caruana says Gukesh's opening moves led to his loss in Freestyle tour: 'He was in a hopeless situation'")
American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana said that Indian chess sensation D Gukesh paid the price for a poor opening as he was eliminated from the title race of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour Stage 1 on Monday (10 January) . Having already lost Game 1 of the quarter-finals against Caruana, chess world champion Gukesh faced a do-or-die contest on Monday against World No.2, but he was forced to resign after just 18 moves following multiple blunders in the high-stakes match played at Weissenhaus, Germany.
Gukesh started aggressively sacrificed two pawns by the sixth move . He then played 6… g6?! which the computer engine labelled as a mistake and suggested 6… Bxa2 is the right move. Later on move 17, Gukesh again made a mistake by playing 17… c5?! when the best move was 17… Nd7.
The match lasted just one more after this as Caruana created a solid defence around his king with kingside castling and Gukesh decided to resign with no hope of winning the match and securing a comeback.
While Gukesh’s forte is classical format it was felt that he would be able to do well in freestyle games with classical time control, however, he is yet to win a single match in the Weissenhaus leg of the inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025.
‘Gukesh could have posed more problems’
After securing a comfortable passage to the semi-finals, Caruana said that losing a thrilling Game 1 in the quarter-finals and making a poor opening in Game 2 led to Gukesh’s early elimination.
“It really came down to yesterday. The game today, Of course, he probably could have posed more problems for me, and he tried to sacrifice a pawn and create some imbalances, but it wasn’t,” Caruana said while speaking to Take Take Take. “I don’t think it was a situation to do so, it was right out of the opening, and I didn’t make any mistakes, like conceptual mistakes. Sometimes pawn sacrifice can be very, very dangerous. But in this case, it was just like on move four, my position doesn’t deserve that violent treatment. I thought, so, yeah, that’s what happens. Like he went for it, it just didn’t work out. His combination completely fizzled out, to an extent where he was just in a hopeless situation very early on.
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More Shorts“He didn’t want to prolong the torture, which I too understand as well, because I think his chance of winning was approximately zero, barring a medical emergency, is about zero. And yeah, I think that the starting position maybe isn’t too favourable to play for a win. So it really comes down to that game yesterday, which was super close. And if it had been a different result, we would have also seen a different game today.”
"Sometimes a pawn sacrifice can be very dangerous, but in this case it was just like on move 4. My position doesn't deserve that violent treatment."@FabianoCaruana eliminates the world champion from @chess_freestyle. pic.twitter.com/wmLprbVRJd
— Take Take Take (@TakeTakeTakeApp) February 10, 2025
Gukesh created history late last year by becoming the youngest chess world champion as he defeated Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship 2024 at the age of 18. Besides Gukesh, the Weissenhaus leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour also includes other top young players including 19-year-old Javokhir Sindarov, the 20-year-olds Vincent Keymer and Nodirbek Abdusattorov.
This has added an extra layer to the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, which is seen as a battle between established players like Magnus Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Caruana and the upcoming young chess talents.
While Carlsen and Caruana are the only senior players to reach the semis, Keymer and Sindarov have also progressed to the last four stage.
Caruana, however, feels that senior players have an advantage in the freestyle chess format. They don’t have to spend too much energy preparing for the opening, and they also have a lot of experience, which helps them devise better strategies.
Experienced players have advantage in freestyle chess: Caruana
“Maybe we still have a bit of advantage here, because of some of the qualities that the younger players have, which includes the energy that they have, an energy advantage over us. They have a bit more energy, although we’re not old men or anything. But still, it is a bit different when you’re in your 30s than when you’re in your 20s, in terms of being able to prepare four hours before a game, and if you’re playing a tournament that’s three weeks long, and here, the preparation before the game is non existent,” Caruana said.
“There’s 10 minutes, it doesn’t sap your energy at all. So that is a little bit of an advantage, I think, which can make itself felt. And I mean, I can’t say this for myself, but perhaps for some of the other players, they’re not as focussed on the like intensive opening work that that we went through. You know, when you work like eight hours a day on your openings in your 20s and at some point you have other life responsibilities, and also maybe not the motivation to do that every day. Although I still work on chess very regularly, I assume if we’re talking about Magnus (Carlsen) and Hikaru (Nakamura), they also work on chess quite often, and are very serious about chess.
“But the kind of work that you know, if you’re talking about guy like Gukesh in the opening, it might not be the same level, if you’re looking at the older guys, and especially coming off a world championship. That’s an amazing amount of work that goes into that. So, candidates, World Championship preparation, and all that stuff. Definitely, Gukesh is one of the best-prepared and hardest-working opponents at the moment.”
As compared to classical chess, in freestyle chess, the starting positions of pieces on the back rank are randomised. At the Grand Slam, the positions are revealed only 15 minutes before the match which means a player cannot prepare an opening beforehand. This helps in promoting creativity and unpredictability.
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