World champion Gukesh contemplates his next move in the first game of the quarter-final against Fabiano Caruana in Weissenhaus. All games were played in Position 381. (Screenshots: YouTube/Freestyle Chess)
Gukesh Dommaraju’s wretched form at the Weissenhaus leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour continued as the world champion lost the first game of the quarter-final to Fabiano Caruana with white pieces on Sunday.
Gukesh will have a chance to level on Monday when the two players play the second game of the quarter-final with colours reversed.
Gukesh played nine games in the rapid time control before Sunday — one game each against all the other players in the field — but did not manage to win a single game. Gukesh had just about snuck into the quarter-finals of the Weissenhaus event after finishing ahead of Vladimir Fedoseev and Levon Aronian in the standings. Only eight players out of the 10 made it to the knockout stages after the rapid portion.
Gukesh was expected to do better in the classical game on Sunday, considering he thrives in the longest time control event. But Sunday’s defeat to Caruana means he has just one game to save his campaign.
READ MORE: How does one train for Freestyle Chess? Sometimes, you just don’t!
The knockout stage of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus saw four out of the five games that were played ending in decisive results. Gukesh, playing with white pieces, lost to Fabiano Caruana in 40 moves while there were also wins for Magnus Carlsen (who beat Nodirbek Abdusattarov with white) and Vincent Keymer (who beat Alireza Firouzja with black). Only the Hikaru Nakamura versus Javokhir Sindarov game ended in a draw.
INTERACTIVE: How Gukesh lost to Fabiano Caruana
The way the freestyle chess event is structured, players only find out 15 minutes before the game what the opening position will look like.
Fabi defeats Gukesh in their first QF game 🔥 #freestylechess pic.twitter.com/B70nmqAKp9
— Chess.com (@chesscom) February 9, 2025
On Monday, the opening position (Position 381) saw the queens starting on the h file.
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The opening position in the Gukesh vs Fabiano Caruana quarter-final game at the Weissenhaus leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. (Screenshot: Lichess)
It was a game where Gukesh’s all-powerful queen sat on a corner of the board on h1 square twiddling its thumbs for 17 moves.
In fact, his queen moved just thrice before being picked off. His rook on the other corner also moved once before it was eliminated.
The game saw many accuracies and blunders from both players, as is to be expected in a freestyle chess game with players only learning their opening position 15 minutes before the game starts.
On top of that, there is no second time control like there is in events like the Candidates and the World Championship. This means that players are forced to think long and hard from the first move itself and with the knowledge that they only get 30-second increments for each move they make after the initial 90 minutes.
