Who will Gukesh face in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, Weissenhaus 2025 quarterfinals?
The knockout stage of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour’s first event will begin on Sunday, February 9 with World Champion D Gukesh in action.
The Indian GrandMaster will be facing USA’s Fabiano Caruana in the quarterfinals.
According to a video on ChessBase India’s X account, the eight players remaining in competition – Levon Aronian and Vladimir Fedoseev dropped out – came to a consensus the top four players after the round-robin could select their opponents for the knockouts.
This meant Alireza Firouzja, Javokhir Sindarov, Caruana, and Magnus Carlsen had to chose their opponents from the bottom four players. Firouzja went first with the rest following.
When his turn came, Caruana opted to play the reigning world champion with the black pieces.
Gukesh had a mixed round-robin stage after he failed to register a single win. The 18-year-old played out seven draws and ended with 3.5 points on the board. However, he did just enough to make the cut for the knockouts.
