Gukesh bows out of Freestyle Grand Slam chess after loss to Caruana

HAMBURG, Feb 10: World champion D Gukesh bowed out of Freestyle Grand Slam chess after losing his second straight quarterfinal game against Fabiano Caruana of the United States here on Monday.
Having lost the first game with white pieces, Gukesh did not last long against the American Grandmaster in a must-win tie with Caruana finishing the contest in a mere 18 moves.
Gukesh will now fight for the last-four spots.
The freestyle chess is built around 960 random positions, shifting the initial position of the pieces from the base rank while the pawns remain intact.
The term came from an idea by former great Bobby Fischer who was the first to advocate it. Given the money that has come in to support the new format, it could well be the future of chess.
Gukesh blundered a pawn out of the opening.
Caruana is someone who has played this variant for a while, and it took the Italian-turned-American 15 moves to find his way into normal chess position, where he was a pawn plus.
Gukesh decided not to challenge Caruana in a lost position and shook hands.
Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen, the main protagonist behind the tour, continued from where he left and scored a fine win over Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
Alireza Firouzja of France lost to Vincent Keymer of Germany in the opener, and the irony is that the latter was chosen to be his first round opponent by the winner of the qualifier event.
In the other game of the quarters, Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan played out a draw with Hikaru Nakamura
While in the inconsequential ninth place decider, American Levon Aronian finally won his first game at the expense of Vladimir Fedoseev of Slovenia. (PTI)