Gukesh’s Weissenhaus event ended with a defeat in 30 moves to Alireza Firouzja on Friday. (FIDE/Lennart Ootes
Another year, another world champion struggles at Weissenhaus. One year after then world champion Ding Liren ended in last place after going winless at the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge, Ding’s successor on the throne, D Gukesh too endured a winless tournament. The reigning world champion’s results sheet for the first event of Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour reads: zero wins, 11 draws and six defeats.
At least he did not end up dead last like Ding did last year. Gukesh will also find solace in the knowledge that a few weeks ago, he almost won the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk Aan Zee (a tournament where Ding had also suffered on the board).
Gukesh’s Weissenhaus event ended with a defeat in 30 moves to Alireza Firouzja on Friday. His 11 draws and six defeats span the nine round robin games played in the rapid format where he had two defeats and seven draws. Then, in the quarters, he lost both his classical time control games to Fabiano Caruana before two draws against Hikaru Nakamura, who himself has had his fair share of struggles in Weissenhaus. In the rapid tiebreaks against the World No.3 from the United States, Gukesh drew one game and lost another to end up fighting for seventh spot against Firouzja. There, he managed to claw out a draw in the first game before losing the second one on Friday.
Vincent Keymer, who had been one of the seconds for Gukesh in his World Chess Championship-winning run, won the event after one of the best performances of his career. What was remarkable about Keymer’s run to the title was that he took down players of the calibre of Firouzja, Magnus Carlsen and Caruana.
Against Firouzja on Friday, Gukesh never had even a sliver of hope. By the 13th moves of both players — 13. Rd1 Kc7 — Gukesh was in trouble. Firouzja started to mount his pieces on the queen-side one subtle move after another. First, his knights steered towards queenside on two consecutive moves occupying the d6 and c5 squares (14… Nd6 and 15… Nc).
Then, in a rush of blood, he hopped his queen to b4 (Qb4), which was an inaccuracy, with Qb5 being the best move. He course-corrected on the next move, retreating the queen back a square. Then the bishop came in on c4, and his rooks were doubled in the d file by the 19th move.
By then, the writing was on the wall. Gukesh’s defences in front of his king were too thin to hold out against the full force of Firouzja’s army. The Indian tried to respond by attacking his opponent’s king with his queen on the 22nd move, but it was a desperate Hail Mary more than anything else. In the process, Gukesh was now down a queen as well, but had at least managed to remove both of his opponent’s rooks. However, his own remaining rook was stuck on a1 where it could do limited damage.
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On Thursday, Gukesh had managed to defend a vastly inferior position to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat. On Friday, there would be no such miracles. On the 30th move, Gukesh resigned to end one of the most wretched tournaments of his career.
Amit Kamath is Assistant Editor at The Indian Express and is based in Mumbai. … Read More
