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On the opening day of Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Weissenhaus, Germany, D Gukesh failed to open his victory account as he ended the day with four games and a defeat against Alireza Firouzja in the second round. The youngster currently holds the sixth spot with two points out of five. Gukesh started his campaign with a draw against Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov. The Uzbek looked frustrated after his failure to push checkmate king with two knights.
However, Gukesh could’ve pulled off a win in the fifth round during his clash against America’s Hikaru Nakamura, who also went back home winless. The round witnessed Gukesh gaining advantage over his American counterpart but the time pressure broke the 18-year-old’s confidence which helped the 37-year-old to make a comeback. However, Nakamura also failed to utilise the gains as he shook hands with the youngster and settled for a draw
Along with Gukesh and Nakamura, Magnus Carlsen also failed to do wonders as the Norwegian Grandmaster ended the day at the same level along with his both rivals. The 34-year-old kicked off his campaign with a win against Nakamura but faced a defeat against Fabiano Caruana. Carlsen held his nerves and utilised his experience to make a comeback against Vincent Keymer in the third round but the fourth and fifth rounds saw him losing the momentum as he lost to Vladmir Fedoseev and Sindarov respectively.
Caruana and Sindarov end Day 1 on a high note
Italian-American Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana and Uzbekistan’s Javookhir Sindarov recorded massive gains as both players are currently joint leaders with 4.5/5 points. Of the ten players in the round-robin stage, two at the bottom of the pool will exit on Saturday, February 8 when the remaining four rounds will be conducted.
Top eight players will enter the quarter-finals with the option of picking up opponents of their choice, with the order of choosing fourth to eighth player. However, in the process, the fourth-placed player will be left with no choice to pick.
