 "Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour: Gukesh remains winless after collecting draw against Nakamura; Keymer stuns Carlsen")
Gukesh Dommaraju’s winless run in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour event in Weissenhaus, Germany continued on Tuesday with the reigning world champion being held to a draw by world No 2 Hikaru Nakamura. Gukesh and Nakamura opted to shake hands after 59 moves – the longest match on Day 5 of the event at the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort in which the Indian was playing with black pieces.
It was the second time the 18-year-old Indian Grandmaster held Nakamura to a draw in the ongoing event; the two stars had earlier opted to shake hands after 38 moves during the Round Robin stage of the tournament, in which matches had been played in the rapid format.
Tuesday’s meeting between Gukesh and Nakamura was the first match of the 5th-8th place playoffs, with the two players set to face each other again on Wednesday, albeit with colours reversed.
As for the semi-finals, Keymer kept the German flag flying high with a sensational victory over world No 1 Magnus Carlsen, who had beaten Nodirbek 2-0 in the quarters. The evaluation bar shot up in Keymer’s favour after five-time world champion Carlsen decided to move his pawn forward (c6) in his 37th move, with the German’s reply (Qa3) further solidifying his position on the board. Carlsen would resign just two moves later.
Keymer finds the killing blow and wins game one against Carlsen! He will need a draw tomorrow to win the match.https://t.co/K1UaL5RqE3#FreestyleChess pic.twitter.com/tVczOCSHGM
— chess24 (@chess24com) February 11, 2025
Impact Shorts
View AllAs for the other semi-final, Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov played out a stalemate that lasted 51 moves.
Gukesh’s hopes of reaching the semi-finals were dashed with back-to-back defeats against American GM Caruana in the quarter-finals, with the Indian resigning in 40 and 18 moves in Game 1 and 2 respectively.
Nakamura, meanwhile, had lost to Uzbekistan GM Sindarov, who wasn’t even part of the original lineup and was only included after Indian legend Viswanathan Anand had withdrawn from the event. Their quarter-final went into tie-breaks after both games ended in a draw, with Sindarov eventually prevailing 2.5-1.5.
In the other 5th-8th place classification match on Tuesday, Alireza Firouzja and Nodirbek Abdusattorov played out a 43-move draw in which the latter was playing with white pieces. Firouzja had finished on top of the standings at the end of the Round-Robin stage, but was eliminated in the quarters following a defeat against German Grandmaster Vincent Keymer.
The winner of the Firouzja-Nodirbek battle faces the winner of Gukesh vs Nakamura for the fifth spot later this week while the losers battle for seventh.
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