Freestyle Chess Grand Slam: Gukesh snaps losing streak with draw against Nakamura

India's Gukesh Dommaraju snapped out of his three-game losing streak at the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam with a draw against GM Hikaru Nakamura in Weissenhaus, Germany on Tuesday.

Gukesh, playing with the black pieces, was never in trouble unlike his last few games in the tournament.

The 18-year-old classical world champion held his own against the reigning freestyle world champion, forcing a draw by repetition after 59 moves.

The draw means that Gukesh will now have the advantage of playing with the white pieces in the reverse game of this fifth to eighth place play-off match on Wednesday.

Earlier, Gukesh had lost out to the United States of America's Fabiano Caruana 0-2 in the quarter-finals of the tournament. 

The Indian had erred in his first game before resigning after just 18 moves in the second. This was after he had just managed to squeeze into the knockout stage after suffering a loss at the hands of Magnus Carlsen in the final round robin game.