SINGAPORE: After four hours and change in the humble, unglamorous everyday office chair, Ding Liren finally got up. He left the playing hall for a break. The person sitting on the opposite end of the table, D Gukesh, had his head buried inside his hands. It was the opening game's most symbolic moment.
Liren knew he had won the game but wanted his opponent to suffer for a few more minutes before the final act. Gukesh knew he had lost but couldn't officially resign because his opponent had left him hanging. The 32-year-old wasn't just content twisting the knife. He wanted the knife to stay twisted before Gukesh tapped out.
The favourite coming into the 14-game match, Gukesh, may have lost but this is what the World Championship needed — a Liren win to set the ball rolling in Singapore.
The pre-tournament build-up was dominated by concerns around Liren's form, his battles with mental health and whether this would be a one-sided final. To be fair, there was some merit in that argument. The world champion hadn't won a Classical game since January.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Indian teen was coming off a double gold performance at the Olympiad in Hungary a few months ago (at the Olympiad, Liren took a break the day he was supposed to play Gukesh when China faced India).
But the World Championship is a different beast. It should be viewed in isolation, an event with its separate heartbreak and rhythm. The 18-year-old was the form man when both players walked past the packed hallway and into the playing hall shortly before 5.00 PM local time. A small but expectant crowd waved them on with cheers and a whole load of lightbulbs going off.
By the time both players took to their seats -- Liren in the office chair and Gukesh in a retrofitted gaming chair -- it was known that Richard Rapport was one of the former's seconds. Rapport, who helped Liren at last year's Championship against Ian Nepomniachtchi, had come on record to this daily to say he may not reprise that role before the Global Chess League in October.
But obviously, preparation for this particular event is done in total secrecy. It's all cloak and daggers because you don't want the opponent to know what you have up your sleeve.
Rapport's influence was imprinted in the game's opening stages as Liren responded to 1. e4 with e6; a French Defence, an opening close to Rapport (after the game, Liren did acknowledge Rapport being the 'French expert; but said the idea to deploy it on Monday 'was mine').
It was a move off the beaten track as he has seldom played it in recent times. If the intention was to catch the youngest challenger in history off-guard, it didn't have the desired effect. Gukesh blitzed out his next few moves as he looked for openings in the first stanza. While the evaluation bar seldom gave an advantage to the Indian teen during the opening game, Liren had already spent a lot of time.
Even as the 18-year-old was moving at pace (he made his first seven moves in under a minute), Liren's seventh move (a5) saw him waste over 25 minutes. On the official commentary feed, GM David Howell expressed his concern for the world champion. Putting it in batting terms, one was playing T20s while the other was playing Tests from the late 1800s.
This was also the period in the game when Gukesh had a spring in his step. He got up from the chair, took a short bathroom break, came out and strolled around the room, taking calm, unhurried steps, like a man knowing he had the whole day to complete his quota of steps. At one point, he positioned himself directly behind Liren's shoulder as he sought to view the chessboard from his opponent's perspective.
The playing hall was quiet as spectators weren't even allowed to whisper -- multiple volunteers had 'silence please' banners -- and phones had to be left in a safe outside the area. But the lack of sound -- or noise -- didn't dampen the atmosphere. It was like watching a slow-burn thriller from a different era.
The payoff came soon as the game went rogue from the Indian's perspective. The eval bar started favouring black as Gukesh's 'tactical oversights' handed Liren the initiative in the middle game. After 22 moves, the 18-year-old had a fight and a half as the black queen and the dark-coloured bishop took aim at white pieces.
Further inaccuracies meant Gukesh lost his footing. The game was essentially decided thanks to a number of precise Liren moves vs. a small number of inaccuracies and mistakes by Gukesh.
He also got involved in a mad time scramble and made his 40th move with a couple of seconds remaining on the clock but Liren had grown in confidence by now. He knew this position like the back of his hand. Soon enough, Gukesh resigned.
At the post-game press conference, Liren smiled. It was the first time he smiled since landing in Singapore. Next to him, Gukesh was disgusted with himself. If looks could kill, he would have blown up the laptop next to him where both players were talking through their moves. Both players, though, can't afford to analyse this result. The second game of the 14-match Championship is on Tuesday.