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.

Carlsen, the world’s highest-rated chess player since 2010, will take a seat in Weissenhaus, Germany, to compete in freestyle chess, previously known as Chess960 and Fischer Random. The starting position of the back row pieces is randomized, removing a top grandmaster’s lifetime of memorization and theory on how to open a chess game.

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.

World Champion D. Gukesh played out a hard-fought draw with Hikaru Nakamura of the United States in the first game of the 5th-8th place playoffs in the Freestyle Grand Slam chess here on Tuesday.