File photo of D Gukesh.© AFP
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 in Hamburg, Germany. Gukesh was at the top of his game for a good part, improvising when it was necessary but he failed to find a queen sacrifice in the latter stages of the middle game. It changed the course of the game for him. Caruana was quick to take charge of the situation and did not give a chance for the Indian to make a comeback.
Meanwhile, Magnus Carlsen, the main protagonist behind the tour, scored a fine win over Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
Alireza Firouzja of France lost to Vincent Keymer of Germany in the opener.
In the other game of the quarters, Javokhir Sindarov of Uzbekistan played out a draw with Hikaru Nakamura while in the inconsequential 9th place decider, American Levon Aronian won his first game at the expense of Vladimir Fedoseev of Slovenia.
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