Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Highlights: Gukesh loses to Carlsen, but advances to Weissenhaus knockouts

Here’s a recap of D Gukesh’s performances so far at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort in northern Germany:

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.

Gukesh thus advances to the knockouts without a single win. From this point onwards, however, it will be do-or-die for the reigning world champion in the knockouts.

Here are the final standings at the end of the Round Robin stage in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus, with D Gukesh avoiding an early exit from the tournament by finishing 8th out of 10 players, thereby sealing his place in the quarter-finals that get underway on Sunday:

Here are the results from the ninth and final round of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tournament in Weissenhaus, in which Gukesh loses his dream match-up against Carlsen and Nakamura knocks Fedoseev out with his third consecutive victory:

World No 1 Magnus Carlsen defeats world champion D Gukesh in 46 moves in a highly-anticipated showdown at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour!

The tide turns heavily in Carlsen’s favour after a blunder by Gukesh in his 42nd move, playing his knight to d5. The Indian GM finds himself cornered with that moves and resigns just four moves later!

A couple of games have concluded in the ninth and final round. Nodirbek Abdusattorov plays out a draw against Levon Aronian, the latter bowing out of the Weissenhaus tournament with 1.5 points. Nodirbek is currently tied on 3.5 points with Gukesh in the middle of the board.

Javokhir Sindarov, meanwhile, suffers his first defeat of the tournament after resigning in 35 moves against Alireza Firouzja, who moves into the joint-lead.

Both bishops are off the board after the light-squared pieces are exchanged in the 21st move. That is followed by a check to Carlsen’s king with Gukesh’s queen at f5 and a queen exchange in the following move. Shortly after, both players trade rooks by the 26th move.

D Gukesh, playing with white pieces with the king positioned along the c file, begins with f4. Carlsen, who’s faring much better today after a disappotining Day 1 in Weissenhaus, responds with b6. Gukesh makes things interesting by initiating a dark-squared bishop exchange in the fifth move.

After 10 moves, things are fairly-even between Gukesh and Magnus.

D Gukesh is finally up against Magnus Carlsen, facing the world No 1 for the first time since being crowned world champion in December. He had publicly stated it was his desire to test himself against the best in the world, and what better an opportunity for him to collect his first win of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour than against the legend who helped found the tournament with Jan Henric Buettner.

Here are the fixtures for the ninth and final round:

— D Gukesh vs Magnus Carlsen

— Hikaru Nakamura vs Vladimir Fedoseev

— Fabiano Caruana vs Vincent Keymer

— Javokhir Sindarov vs Alireza Firouzja

— Nodirbek Abdusattorov vs Levon Aronian

Here’s what the leaderboard looks like with one more round to go. USA’s Levon Aronian is the first of two players eliminated from the knockouts after collecting just one point in eight rounds. Vladimir Fedoseev, meanwhile, sits just above him at ninth with 2.5 points, and will need at least a draw to keep his campaign alive.

While Gukesh shakes hands with Fedoseev, Magnus Carlsen collects his second win in three rounds today by defeating Armenian-American GM Levon Aronian, who is eliminated from the race to the knockouts as a result.

The other player to collect an outright victory in this round is Hikaru Nakamura, who defeats Vincent Keymer while playing with black pieces for a second consecutive win.

D Gukesh is held to his sixth consecutive draw, and seventh overall in eight rounds as Vladimir Fedoseev fights on and drags the game past the 60th move, with the game ending in a stalemate via repetition of moves. With that, the reigning world champion has 3.5 points to his name out of 8.

For the first time in the Weissenhaus leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, D Gukesh looks as if he’s on the verge of a victory. Both players, however, are running out of time right now, and that could Fedoseev could use that to his advantage in order to escape with a stalemate.

Stockfish, the engine that Chess.com makes use of, is not a fan of Gukesh’s decision to move his king, which is positioned along the e file in this round, to his right (Kd8). That is followed by what it believes is a blunder as Gukesh accepts Fedoseev’s invitation for a pawn exchange on f5.

Fedoseev then opts to castle in his 12th move, and his Indian opponent decides to advance his bishop all the way to Bc4, right next to his opponent’s queen, which faces direct threat from a knight that’s prowling nearby.

Gukesh is off to a questionable start as he begins with c6 in response to Fedoseev’s g4 opening. The Russian-born Slovenian GM brings out his knight in the second move, which is followed by Gukesh advancing his dark-square bishop in Move 3.

Gukesh later initiates a bishop exchange by the seventh move.

Here’s the fixtures list for the penultimate round of the Weissenhaus Round-Robin stage:

— D Gukesh vs Vladimir Fedoseev

— Magnus Carlsen vs Levon Aronian

— Hikaru Nakamura vs Vincent Neymer

— Fabiano Caruana vs Javokhir Sindarov

— Alireza Firouzja vs Nodirbek Abdusattorov

Magnus Carlsen is discussing tactics with Javokhir Sindarov, Vincent Keymer and Vladimir Fedoseev around a chess board in the lobby area ahead of the eight round. Unfortunately for us viewers, the conversation isn’t audible enough to be posted here.

Here’s what the leaderboard looks like after seven rounds in the opening event of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus:

It’s a first for Fabiano Caruana as well as for Hikaru Nakamura after the latter triumphs in the battle of the Americans in Round 7. Caruana, who was the joint-leader at the end of Day 1, suffers his first defeat while Nakamura surges ahead of Gukesh by collecting his first victory.

Caruana put up quite the fight, dragging the contest to 76 moves before raising the white flag.

Here are the results from the seventh round of the Weissenhaus Round Robin stage:

World No 1 Carlsen is yet to collect consecutive wins in Weissenhaus as his seventh-round clash against Firouzja ends in a 40-move draw despite the latter playing a questionable move (37. Kg1) late in the game. The Iranian-French GM was forced to resort to repetition (Rc1+ and Rc2+) in order to walk away with half-a-point.

The Indian Grandmaster collects another draw, his fifth on the trot and his sixth overall in seven rounds, with this contest lasting a total of 42 moves.

Unlike his opening game of the day against Fabiano Caruana, Gukesh did not really allow his opponent to dictate terms at any point, with the two players left with their kings in the end.

A bishop exchange is followed by a knight exchange in Game 12. Keymer also executes an En passant in his 13th move after Gukesh moves his b pawn by a couple of squares, placing it right next to Keymer’s pawn on the same rank on the a file.

Gukesh later castles in his 15th move. And at the end of the 20th move, Keymer has a slight advantage over Gukesh.

D Gukesh is back to playing with whites, and captures Keymer’s pawn as early as his second move after the game starts with a d4 and c5. He makes another pawn capture before his piece is captured by the German’s dark-squared bishop.

Keymer opts to castle in his sixth move and also has both of his knights advance early. Gukesh, meanwhile, initiates a bishop exchange in the eighth move.

Up next for D Gukesh is Vincent Keymer – who was part of the team that helped him defeat Ding Liren in the FIDE World Championship in Singapore recently. Can he collect his maiden victory against a player he knows so well?

Round 7 fixtures:

— D Gukesh vs Vincent Keymer

— Magnus Carlsen vs Alireza Firouzja

— Hikaru Nakamura vs Fabiano Caruana

— Javokhir Sindarov vs Nodirbek Abdusattorov

— Levon Aronian vs Vladimir Fedoseev

Here’s what the leaderboard looks like after the conclusion of the sixth round at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort in northern Germany:

Here’s a look at the results in the first round of the day, in which both leaders Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov collected draws, the former against D Gukesh, and Magnus Carlsen bounced back from consecutive losses with a victory.

Trust Gukesh to fight on, even if he finds himself on the verge of defeat. Joint-leader Fabiano Caruana appeared to be closing in on a victory after the Indian GM committed a blunder in Move 34 and the Italian-American was making a few solid decisions around the same time.

Gukesh makes brilliant use of his queen and produces a series of repetitive moves to ensure a 61-move draw!

World No 1 Magnus Carlsen is off to a winning start on the second day after an underwhelming Day 1, defeating Uzbekistani GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov in 44 moves while playing with white pieces!

With that, he now has three wins and as many losses so far in Weissenhaus.

D Gukesh makes a huge mistake as he moves his knight to c5 in his 34th move, between his queen and his opponent’s rook. He had mere seconds left on the clock, and had to make a move no matter what, and might have had a bit of a brain-fade there.

Stockfish is now leaning heavily in favour of the Italian-American GM, who has played a couple of solid moves.

Gukesh has a slightly better accuracy than Fabi a little over 30 minutes into the sixth-round contest, and the two players are still fairly level at the moment. Both players have less than a minute on the clock though.

Both players have their queens on the board along with a rook and a knight.

Gukesh begins the day against Caruana playing with black pieces, with the king positioned along the ‘E’ file in this round. The Indian GM responds to the Italian-American GM’s c4 opening with f6, and the Stockfish chess engine likes his decision to move his ‘G’ pawn in his fifth move.

Gukesh has a slight advantage after the first 10 moves.

The sixth round should be starting any minute now. However, several players including Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana are currently huddled around a chess board in what appears to be a lobby at the venue, discussing strategies for the remainder of the day.

Speaking on the innovative Chess960 format after Day 1 of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus, D Gukesh said that while he was happy to play any format in any time control, he did not see Freestyle taking over Classical Chess – of which he is the reigning world champion.

“I think 960 is nice as an experiment, but I don’t see it taking over classical chess. The Classical World Chess Championship cycle will be much more important than 960, so I am glad to experiment with the 960”.

After a mixed outing on Day 1 of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus, reigning world champion D Gukesh opened up on his first experience playing the experimental Chess960 format.

“I’m just here. I am happy to play any format, any time control. I am just trying to do my best in every game. For me, it is just that I am trying to give my best in chess and nothing else really matters. So, I just hope there is more clarity in the chess world and everything goes well, but none of it really matters, I just want to play chess,” Gukesh told ChessBase India

Here’s the fixtures list for Round 6, the first round taking place today at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort located along the Baltic Coast in northern Germany:

— D Gukesh vs Fabiano Caruana

— Magnus Carlsen vs Nodirbek Abdusattorov

— Hikaru Nakamura vs Javokhir Sindarov

— Alireza Firouzja vs Vladimir Fedoseev

— Vincent Keymer vs Levon Aronian

Here are the standings at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus after five rounds on the opening day:

Here’s Gukesh Dommaraju’s schedule for the second day of the opening Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tournament in Weissenhaus:

Round 6: Fabiano Caruana

Round 7: Vincent Keymer

Round 8: Vladimir Fedoseev

Round 9: Magnus Carlsen

The highlight of the second day’s action in Weissenhaus, of course, will be the much-awaited showdown between reigning world champion D Gukesh and world No 1 Magnus Carlsen.

Gukesh had expressed his desire to test himself against Carlsen after being crowned world champion, and his wish is set to be fulfilled today. What makes the upcoming contest even spicier is the fact that Carlsen had been critical of his victory over Ding Liren in the World Championship, questioning the quality of the match.

Looks like the 18-year-old Indian GM has the perfect opportunity to prove the five-time world champion wrong.

The second day’s schedule at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort includes the remaining four rounds in the Round-Robin Stage – one less than the number of rounds that had taken place on Friday, the opening day.

Stay tuned to our live blog for more updates.