The Week in Chess

The eighth game of the World Chess Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan finished in a draw but only after Ding Liren missed very good chances to win. Off the board it seems that people have found some of Ding's training games on Lichess where these unusual lines, and presumably other things he intends to use were practiced.

Ding played 4.e3 against the Nimzo-Indian but only on the way to a Saemisch pawn structure with 5.a3, he then played 9.Ra2 which he believed would be a powerful surprise. Nepomniachtchi didn't take long over choosing 9...b6 which would be most people's first idea in this structure. Ding followed up with a very temporary piece sacrifice and then a break in the centre. 17.d6 took Ding half an hour but posed lots of problems.

Nepomniachtchi said after the game "I don't know why, but suddenly I felt overambitious and made some awful moves that almost cost me the game, or at least half a point. And then I was lucky and had some nice chances to escape."

22...Bxe4 was a very bad error, 22...Rh8 was still equal. 24.Rd2! left Ding with a winning position according to engines. The position still remained difficult and in retrospect 26.d7 was a step in the wrong direction. If Ding had found 26.Rd3! he might not have ended up with such a mess later on but this is not the first move you'd consider.

31.Qh4!? was outright losing to 32.Qxd8 but white would have had to give up more material back to escape perpetual and use the passed d-pawn. A very hard line. White still retained a number of threats and Nepomniachtchi's 33...Qe7?! (33...Qh4 is simpler) followed by 34...e5? (the sacrifice 34...Nd4+ was the equaliser) left Ding with good winning chances again. 37.Bf3? was the final mistake of the game both 37.Bc6! and 37.Kb3 would have led to winning positions with best play but after 37...Nxf2! black had enough for the piece and the game was drawn shortly after first time control.

An escape for Nepomniachtchi, Ding will be disappointed but he didn't miss anything too much today and was certainly very brave in carrying such a strategically risky battle to his opponent. While the players were at the board there was an article on Reddit saying that two 1500 rated players had played games in three of the unusual lines played so far in the match, there's little doubt this was Ding and probably Rapport. Assuming this isn't some kind of misinformation this could be very bad news for Ding's preparation.

Score Nepomniachtchi 4.5-3.5 Ding. Best of 14.

Game 9 Nepomniachtchi-Ding Friday 21st April 10am.