Remarkably, Gukesh’s heart rate even when he was completely losing against Nakamura and was making moves with as little as three seconds on the clock was around 90 beats per minute while his American opponent’s heart was bouncing around at 145 BPM.

D Gukesh remained without a win after six days of competition in the Weissenhaus leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, suffering a 1.5-2.5 defeat against Hikaru Nakamura in their 5th-8th place classification match on Wednesday.

D Gukesh will need to beat Fabiano Caruana in game 2 of the quarterfinals of the Freestyle Chess Grand Tour to stay alive in the competition.

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,

Gukesh lost the second leg on Monday, sealing his exit from the tournament. Gukesh will now play for the 5th-8th place Playoff.

While Gukesh is out of the quarterfinal, his time in Weissenhaus still continues, as he will battle for the fifth to eighth ranking spots, playing the loser of the Hikaru Nakamura vs Jakovhir Sindarov quarterfinal tie. Fifth place gets $50,000 and 10 points, while eighth gets $10,000 and 4 points.