 "Freestyle Chess Tour 2025: Gukesh holds Firouzja to draw after superb fightback; Keymer wins Game 1 of final vs Caruana")
Gukesh Dommaraju failed to snap his winless run in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus on Thursday. However, the manner in which he held Alireza Firouzja to a draw, refusing to give up even at the brink of a defeat, was reminiscent of the fighting spirit that had helped him win the FIDE World Championship in December.
Gukesh is currently facing Iranian-French Grandmaster Firouzja in the match that will decide which players will finish seventh and eighth respectively in the 10-player event. On Thursday, the seventh and penultimate day of competition at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort, Game 1 of the Gukesh-Firouzja lasted 91 moves before both players shook hands and decided to split a point.
However, Gukesh, playing with black pieces, had nearly conceded an entire point to his 21-year-old opponent at one point. The two players were on level terms for the most part in the first 25 moves. However, the evaluation bar began to gradually tilt towards Firouzja as the game progressed, especially after he gave Gukesh’s king a check in the 40th move with his rook on f7.
Gukesh, however, was handed a lifeline after Firouzja lost both rooks by the 59th move, capturing the second one with his dark-squared bishop (f8), with which he would give the white king a check soon after. The 18-year-old Indian then did just about enough to keep his king safe from Firouzja’s knight, and further steered the game towards a draw with a series of repetitive moves.
Homeboy Keymer on verge of fairytale triumph in Weissenhaus
The penultimate day of the event also witnessed another giant-killing act from German Grandmaster Vincent Keymer as he defeated Fabiano Caruana in Game 1 of the final, putting himself in pole position to be crowned champion of the opening event of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
Keymer, who was part of Gukesh’s team in his World Championship battle against Ding Liren in Singapore, had earlier defeated world No 1 and Freestyle Chess co-founder Magnus Carlsen 1.5-0.5 in the semi-finals after the latter resigned in 39 moves in Game 1.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsOn Thursday, world No 4 Caruana, who had knocked Gukesh out 2-0 in the quarter-finals with the second Classical game ending in 18 moves, raised the white flag before he could make his 33rd move.
Fabiano resigns and Vincent takes the lead in the #FreestyleChess Final in Weissenhaus! pic.twitter.com/wpSpkSPOYd
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 13, 2025
Carlsen, on the other hand, bounced back from the shock defeat in the semis by defeating Jakhovir Sindarov – who has had quite the inspirational story himself in Weissenhaus – in 28 moves in Game 1 of their third-place playoff.
In the fifth-place playoff, world No 2 and FIDE Fischer Random world champion Hikaru Nakamura collected a full point against Nodirbek Abdusattarov, who went down fighting in 62 moves while playing with white pieces.
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