SINGAPORE: THE two most dominant themes of the current chess World Championship were present on a nerve-shredding Sunday. Ding Liren has had no problems getting into advantageous positions. He has enjoyed that throughout 2024 and in this title match with D Gukesh. His problem has been converting those gains into definitive wins.
D Gukesh, like many of the young, daring elite players from India, likes to play for a win. If and when all avenues are exhausted, he marshalls his troops and holds fire. Sometimes, even in a totally drawn position, he goes for glory. Call it the innocence of youth or the naivete of the young.
In a bum-clenching game six when fingernails were chewed and other non-edibles were consumed, Gukesh and Liren exhibited their aforementioned traits. In the end, a draw, ironically by three-fold repetition after four hours and over 45 moves, was perhaps a fair result but it's a result both camps will rue as they both had chances to press at various points.
After two hours, the match was headed to a draw. The Chinese world champion, in a slightly better position, offered it by threefold repetition. All Gukesh, playing with Black, had to do was move the Queen back to where it came from — 26...e7. Instead, even when the engine and the experts believed that he was in a slightly worse position, he moved the principal piece out on one of the flanks (h4). It brought out audible gasps in the viewing hall.
Liren, who was all prepared to shake hands with the person on the other end of the chess board, was forced to sit down and calculate the lines again. It was the moment when the blue touchpaper was truly lit. On air for chess24, Peter Leko, who was involved in a title match of his own, was left speechless. His co-commentator, Robert Hess, was 'floored'.
In cricketing terms, the fielding captain had just offered to shake hands with five wickets down with time remaining on the fifth evening of a Test. The batting team, out of their love for Test cricket, rejected that proposal. Or something like that. After the game, the 18-year-old, vying to be the youngest world champion in history, said 'I just wanted to play a few more moves... I like to play chess'.
It elicited a lot of laughs from the press corps but the Indian wasn't laughing for the majority of the game. Liren, accused so often of being solid but unspectacular, went for it from the off. It was a line he knew very well so he kept blitzing out moves even as Gukesh was forced into a long think on several occasions.
Liren had spent seven minutes for his first 20 moves. In comparison, Gukesh had already bled 50 minutes. The engine had slowly but surely given a small advantage to white and Gukesh knew he was worse off. Liren knew he had played a near-perfect opening; he was happily sitting in the players' lounge while Gukesh, head lowered over the chess board, wasn't given time to even take a restroom break; such was the lightning pace of Liren's moves.
Once he found some counterplay to transfer the initiative back to his elder opponent, he allowed himself some time away from the board. He needed that time because he had to be perfect with his calculations to have a chance of turning defence into attack later on, if he so wished (chess.com had pegged his accuracy level at 100% in the opening).
With Liren finally out of preparation, he burned more than 40 minutes on the 21st move (capturing the pawn with the queen). A few moves later, Gukesh refused the draw offer, and the game went into overdrive. White's pawn structure was more mobile so Liren, at least in theory, had more chances even though Gukesh had a couple of passers. The Indian moved the queen from one coast to another to try and find some counterplay from the other flank, but Liren shut it out effectively. Soon enough, the queens were off the board.
Each player had double rooks and five pawns apart from the king. Would it be reduced to a pawn push? In a frenetic end game both players tried to fight but the opponent didn't make a mistake.
Even though the experts believed Gukesh made a mistake by refusing the draw offer, he replied in the negative. "I thought I might be slightly worse out of the opening, but I wasn’t even sure," he said. "But with the files open in front of his king, I thought I would always have counterplay and I didn’t see a reason to take the repetition. Obviously, I wasn’t playing for a win, I just wanted to play a few more moves and see what happened."
His opponent was left to rue another missed opportunity to put pressure. “I feel like I am letting my advantage slip away at a critical moment," he said. "I have to improve this in the following games."
Was it some gamesmanship from Gukesh's part to reject the earlier draw offer? While the Indian side-stepped that question, the next few games will offer more clues. After the second rest day of the final, the 18-year-old will play with White pieces on Tuesday.
1 d4 Nf6
2 Bf4 d5
3 e3 e6
4 Nf3 c5
5 c3 Bd6
6 Bb5+ Nc6
7 Bxc6+ bxc6
8 Bxd6 Qxd6
9 Qa4 O-O
10 Qa3 Ne4
11 Nfd2 e5
12 Nxe4 dxe4
13 Qxc5 Qg6
14 Nd2 Qxg2
15 O-O-O Qxf2
16 dxe5 Rb8
17 Nc4 Be6
18 Rd2 Qf3
19 Re1 Bxc4
20 Qxc4 Qf5
21 Qxc6 Qxe5
22 Qd5 Qe7
23 Qd6 Qg5
24 Qd5 Qe7
25 Qd6 Qg5
26 Qd5 Qh4
27 Red1 g6
28 Qe5 Rbe8
29 Qg3 Qh5
30 Qf4 Qa5
31 a3 Qb5
32 Rd4 Qe2
33 R1d2 Qf3
34 Kc2 Qxf4
35 exf4 f5
36 h4 e3
37 Re2 Re7
38 Kd3 Rfe8
39 h5 gxh5
40 Rd5 h4
41 Rxf5 Rd7+
42 Kc2 Kg7
43 Kg2+ Kh8
44 Re2 Kg7
45 Kg2+ Kh8
46 Re2 Kg7