Freestyle Chess Grand Slam: D Gukesh finishes eighth in Weissenhaus

Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju's nightmare at the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Weissenhaus, Germany came to an end with an eighth-place finish on Friday.

Gukesh, the reigning world champion, lost his final game in the competition to France's Alireza Firouzja with the white pieces to finish eighth.

The 18-year-old Indian erred in the middle game and landed in a completely lost position within a span of three moves.

Friouzja pressed home the advantage, with Gukesh resigning from the game after 30 moves.

Earlier on Thursday, Friouzja had held Gukesh to a draw with the black pieces in the first of their two classical matches for the seventh place play-off.

Gukesh endured a horrid run in the tournament, right from the start. He failed to register a single win in the competition and barely made it out of the round robin stage, taking the eighth and final spot for the knockouts.

He then lost out to Fabiano Caruana in the quarter-finals, losing both his games before Hikaru Nakamura got the better of him in the tiebreaks in the fifth to eighth place play-offs.

Interestingly, Gukesh's second for his world championship match against Ding Liren last year – Vincent Keymer – ended up winning the tournament, beating Caruana 1.5-0.5 in the final.

Magnus Carlsen finished third, blanking a young Javokhir Sindarov 2-0 in the third-place play-off.