(PC: Lennart Ootes via Grand Chess Tour)
The great Indian dream in the World Chess Championship final began on a disappointing note. In the first game in Singapore on Monday, D Gukesh suffered an unexpected defeat against China’s Ding Liren. The Chinese defending champion, who had a winless run of 28 games before this one, came back from a tough corner to win after 42 moves, when Gukesh resigned.
It’s not much of a setback if you consider that 13 more rounds are still to be played at the Resorts World Sentosa. There is plenty of time to stage a comeback. But, it was a morale-boosting win for Ding, who had been written off by most experts before this match. Gukesh was playing with white pieces and held an edge for a long time. When he crumbled, there was no coming back.
According to commentators across various Internet platforms broadcasting this match, the 18-year-old Indian had a superior position for much of the game. He had the time advantage too, having made his first few moves in raid speed. Ding spent long periods of time to make his moves initially. The situation changed completely as the game progressed.
It came to such a head that Gukesh had 40 seconds left for his last seven moves to make the time control. He eventually made it, but the moves he made under extreme time pressure were not the perfect ones and his position kept weakening drastically towards the end. The commentators had concluded well before the end that it was tough for Gukesh to save this one.
According to many, this was an anti-climactic beginning to the biggest individual competition in chess. Ding’s form after winning the title in April 2023 had taken a dip. He performed poorly in competitions, his rating dipped and he himself said that he was afraid of “losing badly” against Gukesh. A lot of people, still, believed that he was deliberately underplaying his chances.
That turned out to be true as the 32-year-old in his first appearance in Singapore countered Gukesh’s incisive early moves with the right kind of defence. Ding then progressed to make things so complicated for the Indian that he spent a lot of time pondering what to do. The amount of time it took proved decisive in the end, when Ding played himself into a clearly strong position.
Gukesh and team will not have a lot of time to regroup as the second game will be played on Tuesday. Gukesh will have black pieces this time and Ding will start with a slight advantage. Drawing first blood is a massive step in these finals and the Indian will have to play catch-up until he can break the resistance of his opponent. For the moment, Gukesh is straightaway on the back foot.