The Week in Chess

The thirteenth game of the World Chess Championship in Singapore between Gukesh D and Ding Liren ended in a draw after 68 moves. Gukesh surprised Ding in the opening and had him on the back foot for much of the game, there was a concrete chance missed on move 31, unfortunately for Gukesh the move he played looked like it might do the trick too.

Gukesh returned to 1.e4 and the French Defence was again played by Ding. 7.a3 was already rare, "a move order trick" according to Ding and the players were soon on their own. The position became extremely unbalanced after 10...Nc4 11.Bxc4. Maybe Gukesh should have tried 12.Qg4, the engine's preference but over the board he didn't see its merits. 17.Qf3 was nominally equal according to the computer but the position remained very tense and Ding said he missed 19.Qe2 and also he missed 22.Bf4! after which black is very much on the back foot. 23...Rc6 was much better than 23...Rb7 but Gukesh then played the rather odd 25.Bxe7 saying he feared Nd5 but there were other more powerful ways of stopping that. Then the key moments of the game occurred. 30.Rde1 forced Ding to take two rooks for the Queen, I can understand his reluctance but 30...Qf7? was just bad and the taking the two rook gave near equality. Not only is there an objective very strong continuation with 31.Rxe8 Qxe8 32.Ne4 which looks very hard to defend but Ding also didn't have a reply for 31.Ne4? and thought he might have to resign. Fortunately for him he had 31...Rf8! which is actually very near to equality after 32.Nd6 Rc7! After that Ding made the rest of the game look ridiculously easy, he got to move 40 with equality and traded down to a draw with no further drama.

A miss for Gukesh but the presence of an attractive but ultimately inferior alternative was what cost him his chance.

Score Ding 6.5-Gukesh 6.5.

12th December Game 14 Ding-Gukesh. It is at least conceivable that Ding thinks his best chances are in the tie-breaks and he will play it very safe. But maybe he'll feel Gukesh is vulnerable and that tomorrow is his best chance. Tie-breaks will be on December 13th if needed.