(PC: Lennart Ootes via Grand Chess Tour)
Atreyo Mukhopadhyay in Singapore
For the second day running, D Gukesh’s father was spotted outside the auditorium where spectators are seated to watch the World Chess Championship. Dr Rajinikanth was once again glued to his phone. And yet again, he saw his son squander a favourable position against Ding Liren before settling for a draw. With six games to go, the scores are tied 4-4.
This is becoming a pattern in this duel. The defending champion thinks a lot to make his moves in the first half, falls way behind in terms of time remaining on the clock and claws back to frustrate the challenger. For the second day running, Ding came back from a spot of bother — not as bad as Game 7 though— and tried to put pressure on the youngster towards the end.
The Indian was off to a promising start. After the early moves, he had a ‘reverse V’ pawn structure on the board. Playing with black, he had pawns occupying the d5 and e5 squares. These are central squares and the player who has control over these two, is usually better placed. Gukesh negated Ding’s advantage of playing with white and reached a slightly better position.
The Chinese was way behind on the clock. After 18 moves, Gukesh had around 70 minutes remaining, compared to Ding’s 35. However, those who have followed this match were not reading too much into this. A number of times over the last 10 days or so, the 18-year-old was in a similar situation, only to see Ding fight back in the end.
That happened once again at the Resorts World Sentosa. Ding suddenly attacked one of Gukesh’s central pawns and Gukesh moved the other to capture a pawn which reduced his control over the centre. This was surprising, although the 18-year-old still remained comfortable. Ding’s pieces were not well mobilised and he was not in a position to force the issue.
On the 19th move Gukesh brought his knight to e5 and regained his position in the centre to an extent. At that time, Gukesh had nearly an hour left on the clock, while his opponent had around 20 minutes. For the umpteenth time in this match, Ding fought back. His game seems to get better as the clock ticks along and on this day it was no different.
Gukesh tried his best to force the issue after the time control and put doubts in the mind of his rival. He refused an offer for draw and to an extent, regained the position he had lost. But Ding was well-placed to not concede the point. He remained firm and denied Gukesh the breakthrough he was looking for. The Indian’s pieces were not that mobilised. A draw was a fair result in the end.
Gukesh shouldn’t be too disappointed with this 50-move draw. As he said earlier, a draw with black in a World Championship match when the players are even is not a bad result. He did well to come back from the disappointment of the previous round and showed no signs of wilting. He should feel confident when he heads into the ninth round with white pieces.