Defending champion and China’s Ding Liren playing against challenger and Indian Grandmaster D. Gukesh in Game 10 of the World Chess Championship 2024, in Singapore on December 7, 2024. The game ended in a draw which both players tied at 5-5. Photo: X/@FIDE_chess
Who will blink first?
The question still begs the answer. The stalemate continues at the World chess championship.
Ding Liren and D. Gukesh drew their seventh game in a row at World Resorts Sentosa on Saturday. The score is tied at 5-5. Just four games remain in the classical format. If it is a 7-7 draw, a tie-breaker of speed chess will have to be played.
With the stakes so high, and with so few games to be played, it wasn’t surprising to see both the men deciding to play it safe for the second game in a row. Games seven and eight were much sharper, though they both were drawn.
But now, neither Ding nor Gukesh could afford a loss. For, it would be rather difficult to come back into the match.
Gukesh vs Ding World Chess Championship 2024 Game 10 Highlights
Gukesh may be the slightly happier of the two, as he managed to get a draw with black pieces, though he insisted that there wasn’t much of a difference these days between the colours. Both have two games with white.
In Game 10, the opening was London System — not for the first time in this match. That was a bit of a deviation from the theme here, as both the men have looked keen to try out different openings.
Another major theme was also missing. Ding has been behind the clock for most of the time in the opening phase of the games, but on this occasion, he had a lead over Gukesh. Not that it mattered much in a game that looked heading for a draw from early on.
The queens left the arena by the 14th move and, as former World No. 3 Anish Giri cryptically remarked, there were just one and a half moves between the opening and the end-game.
The ending had the same-coloured bishops, rooks and knight, with Gukesh saddled with doubled pawns, but that was no cause for even the faintest of headaches. All the pieces except those bishops were then traded off, and the game ended with three-fold repetition, in 36 moves.
Shortly after the game, Gukesh said the cost of the game was higher than before. “But my approach and my goal are still the same – to play good games,” he said.
Ding said there was not much room to make mistakes. “We need to be careful with every move,” he said.
That was an understatement, in true Ding style.
The Moves:
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 3.Bf4 e6 4.e3 c5 5.Be2 Bd6 6.dxc5 Bxc5 7.c4 0–0 8.0–0 Nc6 9.Nc3 dxc4 10.Bxc4 Nh5 11.Bg5 Be7 12.Ne4 Nf6 13.Nxf6+ Bxf6 14.Qxd8 Rxd8 15.Bxf6 gxf6 16.Rfd1 Bd7 17.Rac1 Be8 18.Rxd8 Rxd8 19.Kf1 Kg7 20.a3 f5 21.Ke1 Kf6 22.Be2 Ne7 23.g3 Rc8 24.Rxc8 Nxc8 25.Nd2 Nd6 26.Nc4 Nxc4 27.Bxc4 Bc6 28.f4 b6 29.Kd2 Ke7 30.Kc3 Kd6 31.b4 f6 32.Kd4 h6 33.Bb3 Bb7 34.Bc4 Bc6 35.Bb3 Bb7 36.Bc4 Bc6. Game drawn.
Published – December 07, 2024 06:12 pm IST
