The Week in Chess

The thirteenth game of the FIDE World Chess Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan finished in a draw by repetition on move 40. Both Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren had chances for advantages during the game before equality was reached at first time control. This result leaves the match tied at 6.5 each with Ding having the white pieces in the final game on Saturday. There will be rapid and blitz tie-breaks in Monday if that game is drawn.

Nepomniachtchi played 1.e4, a Closed Ruy Lopez was chosen by Ding, 10.Be3 was not quite new but no-one has played it at an elite level. Ding played some fairly standard ideas quite quickly and after 14.d4 (Caruana suggests opening the a-file first with 14.axb4 was probably more accurate) Ding seemed to have few problems with 16...Nc4 being at least equal. Nepomniachtchi's 18.f3?! was dubious with 18.Qe2 being better. After the unhappy 19.Bf2 Nepomniachtchi was visibly unhappy.

The next key moment was on black's move 21. Ding thought for 25 minutes, 21...Rb8 was the engine's choice and 21...Qg5 was the aggressive attacking choice, Ding played 21....Re5 whose purpose was a bit unclear and after which white was fine again. After Ding played 23...Qe7?! (23...Qe8 not blocking the bishop was better) it looked like Nepomniachtchi might get some chances, Ding said he had missed 24.Qd4! On move 25 Ding was forced to part with the exchange but seemed to have enough for it. The engines don't have many issues with what followed and by move 36 the position was balanced and the players decided to repeat and draw on move 40.

All the play for on Saturday. I suppose Ian Nepomniachtchi might be marginal favourite in a rapid tie-break but Ding Liren has no real reason to avoid them. It's not like Veselin Topalov against Viswanathan Anand in 2010 where the Bulgarian went down in flames in the final game rather than take on Anand in a rapid tie-break. Magnus Carlsen was huge favourite in his tie-breaks against Sergey Karjakin and Fabiano Caruana and did indeed win comfortably. Ding will try and Saturday but I don't expect big risks.

Score Nepomniachtchi 6.5 - Ding 6.5. Best of 14 games.

Rest day Friday 28th April 2023.

Game 14 Ding-Nepomniachtchi Saturday 28th April 10am UK time.