World Champion Gukesh crashes out of Freestyle chess

World champion D Gukesh bowed out of Freestyle Grand Slam chess after losing his second straight quarter-final game against Fabiano Caruana of the United States in Hamburg on Monday.

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

Gukesh will now fight for the last-four

spots.

The freestyle chess is built around 960 random positions, shifting the initial position of the pieces from the base rank while the pawns remain intact.

The term came from an idea by former great Bobby Fischer who was the first to advocate it. Given the money that has come in to support the new format, it could well be the future of chess.

Gukesh blundered a pawn out of the opening.

Caruana is someone who has played this variant for a while, and it took the Italian-turned-American 15 moves to find his way into normal chess position, where he was a pawn plus.

Gukesh decided not to challenge Caruana in a lost position and shook hands.