The quarter-finals in the Weissenhaus leg of the inaugural Freestyle Chess Grand Slam 2025 is bing played over two games. Gukesh lost Game 1 of the quarter-finals to Caruana in 40 moves. H played with white pieces. Caruana will play with white pieces in Game 2 of the quarters.

Classical World Champion, India’s D. Gukesh lost the second leg of the quarterfinal match against USA’s Fabiano Caruana in the 2025 Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Grand Slam tour in Hamburg, Germany on Monday.

World champion D Gukesh exited the Freestyle Grand Slam Chess after his second quarterfinal loss to Fabiano Caruana in Hamburg. Gukesh, needing a win, blundered a pawn early, leading to his resignation in just 18 moves.

While Gukesh is out of the quarterfinal, his time in Weissenhaus still continues, as he will battle for the fifth to eighth ranking spots, playing the loser of the Hikaru Nakamura vs Jakovhir Sindarov quarterfinal tie. Fifth place gets $50,000 and 10 points, while eighth gets $10,000 and 4 points.

In the other opening quarter-final games, Magnus Carlsen and Vincent Keymer defeat Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Alireza Firouzja respectively while Hikaru Nakamura plays out a 60-move draw against Javokhir Sindarov.

Gukesh lost both his games in the quarter-final against Fabiano Caruana. He's so far winless at Weissenhaus. But he will now play for classification between 5-8 spot.

D Gukesh will need to beat Fabiano Caruana in game 2 of the quarterfinals of the Freestyle Chess Grand Tour to stay alive in the competition.

World Champion D. Gukesh suffered a rare setback in normal time control, losing to USA’s Fabiano Caruana in the first game of the quarterfinals of the Freestyle Grand Slam chess tournament here.

Carlsen, the world’s highest-rated chess player since 2010, will take a seat in Weissenhaus, Germany, to compete in freestyle chess, previously known as Chess960 and Fischer Random. The starting position of the back row pieces is randomized, removing a top grandmaster’s lifetime of memorization and theory on how to open a chess game.

Having lost the first game with white pieces, World champion D Gukesh did not last long against the American Grandmaster in a must-win tie with Caruana finishing the contest in a mere 18 moves.