The Week in Chess

Ian Nepomniachtchi won game two of the FIDE World Chess Championship to take an early 1.5-0.5 lead against his Chinese rival Ding Liren. Ding managed to surprise his opponent early on but once on his own played very poorly to go down to a loss in just 29 moves. "I missed nearly everything today" Ding Liren. Nepomniachtchi in contrast was not phased by the surprise, played quickly, accurately and confidently. Ding's demeanor so far suggests he his struggling with the pressure of the match and if he doesn't settle in soon it could be very bad for him indeed. Ding did start very slowly in last year's Candidates tournament too but does need to pull himself together quickly during the first rest day, Nepomniachtchi will already be smelling blood.

Ding came up with the very surprising sequence 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. h3!? in a Queen's Gambit, a move that had all the hallmarks of Richard Rapport, one of Ding's seconds. Ding said he knew "a lot of ideas, today was a disaster". Just as yesterday Ding just seemed unsettled and spent a lot of time away from the board until severe time trouble and a rapidly deteriorating position forced him to stay.

Nepomniachtchi smiled when he saw 4.h3!? and after a nearly 9 minute thought he settled upon the critical 4...dxc4 which actually allowed him to steer for a similar position in his own opening repertoire after move 11...Na5. Ding played this in a blitz game against Aronian where Re1 was played instead of h3, this difference turned out to be hugely important.

The key phase of the game started now with Ding's ambitious play not being warranted by the position. 12.Nxf6 was the start, 12.Nxc5 was a way of heading for a draw as was 13.dxc5. 13.e4 was the way to try for an advantage but it just seems to grant black the chances especially after the accurate 13...c4! when 14.Bf1 was not possible as it was against Aronian due to the Rook move. 16.Rc1 (16.Qe1) set up the bad idea of 17.Bd3? 18.Re1? was probably the losing error but by this point Ding had made a lot of incorrect decisions. After 18...f5! there were only bad options for white, 19...Nc6 and 20...Rxg5! were both excellent, 25...Bd6 was a final great move after which Ding, already in terrible time trouble, could do nothing.

Score: Nepomniachtchi 1.5 Ding 0.5. Best of 14.

Rest day Tuesday 11th April

Game 3 Wednesday 12th April 10am BST.