The Week in Chess

The FIDE World Chess Championship match in Singapore between Ding Liren and Gukesh D heads to its third rest day on Friday with the players tied at 4.5-4.5.

After the rollercoaster ride that was game 8 today was a Catalan, an opening that's generally well understood by the leading players these days. 10.Bc3 from Gukesh was a little wrinkle which had been played a few times at the top level. 13.b4 looked aggressive and it provoked complications, black seemed to have a few ideas to equalise, and Ding seemed to have seen a couple of them, as it was 20.Qb5 was a tiny bit inaccurate and after the sequence 20...Rxa2 21.Nxb6 Qa7 22.Qb1 Rb8 Ding had solved all his problems and the rest of the game was finding a way to halve the point. Both players seemed in good spirits after this reasonably well played game. It's anyone's match.

Rest day 6th December.

Game 10 Saturday 7th December Ding-Gukesh.