Gukesh reveals why Freestyle Chess remains a challenge as Indians struggle in Paris leg: 'Much more to calculate'

World Chess Champion D Gukesh has opened up on the complexities that have made Freestyle Chess a formidable test even for an elite player like him. Speaking after a tough outing in the Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025, the 18-year-old highlighted why adapting to this unorthodox format has been a challenge for him.

The Paris leg of the Freestyle Chess concluded this week, with Magnus Carlsen taking top prize. Gukesh, despite registering wins over Arjun Erigaisi, R Praggnanandhaa, and Vincent Keymer in the round-robin stage, failed to make the quarter-finals. His campaign ended with a defeat to Richard Rapport in the 9th-12th place playoff match, placing him 11th in the final standings.

Gukesh on why he struggles in Freestyle Chess

“I think the most challenging part for me in Freestyle Chess is that everybody can calculate and see tactics. But evaluating positions correctly, that is the most challenging, at least for me. Because a lot of positions and ideas are similar to standard chess but not exactly similar. And something which we think is good might not actually be good. Our intuition is simply not always correct in Freestyle,” Gukesh told Chess.com.

“Nobody knows the exact way. Some things that all the players are going, or at least I’m doing, is looking at the starting positions and think about the first few moves to learn some concepts or ideas and to solve some studies, because some positions are like studies,” he added.

Gukesh emphasised that the randomness of the starting position in Freestyle Chess makes it harder to calculate what the right moves are.

“I found it very hard to calculate and evaluate here because there is much more to calculate here than in standard chess. In standard chess, you see three or four options you know are good and you calculate. Here you just don’t know which ones are the good moves. Maybe the players who have this kind of feeling for where the pieces belong like Magnus or Vincent… not everybody has that,” he concluded.

It was a disappointing outcome for the Indian contingent overall, with three of the four participants, Gukesh, Vidit, and Praggnanandhaa, finishing in the bottom four. The only silver lining came from Arjun Erigaisi, who defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in a tightly contested fifth-place playoff.

Freestyle Chess Paris Leg: Final standings

2. Magnus Carlsen – Champion

3. Hikaru Nakamura – Runner-up

4. Fabiano Caruana

5. Vincent Keymer

6. Arjun Erigaisi

7. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

8. Ian Nepomniachtchi

9. Nobirdek Abdusattorov

10. R Praggnanandhaa

11. Richard Rapport

12. D Gukesh

13. Vidit Gujrathi