Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju played to a fifth successive draw on Wednesday in the eighth game of their $2.5m world championship showdown in Singapore, leaving the best-of-14-games match all square at 4-all after a rollercoaster affair which saw both players let winning chances slip away in the middlegame.
The 32-year-old reigning champion from China, after playing a new first move (1 c4) for the fourth time in four games with the favored white pieces, fought back from the brink of disaster by finding an incredible idea from a worse position while trailing badly on time. Helped by a Gukesh blunder, Ding played confidently and quickly to turn the tables.
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The players
China’s Ding Liren is defending the world chess championship against fast-rising Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju. The best-of-14-games match is scheduled to take place from 23 November to 15 December at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore for an overall prize fund of $2.5m (£1.98m).
Ding became China's first men’s world chess champion by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi last year in Kazakhstan, winning the title vacated by longtime world No 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway. But the 32-year-old from Zhejiang province has played only 44 classical games in the 19 months since winning the world title while battling personal difficulties including depression and will go off as an underdog in his first world title defense.
Gukesh, commonly known as Gukesh D, stunned the chess establishment by winning the eight-man Candidates tournament in Toronto aged 17 to become the youngest ever challenger for the world championship, finishing top of a stacked field that included Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The 18-year-old can shatter the record for youngest ever world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Karpov in their 1985 rematch in Moscow.
The format
The match will consist of 14 classical games with each player awarded one point for a win and a half-point for a draw. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared the champion.
The time control for each game in the classical portion is 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting with move 41.
If the score is equal after 14 games, tiebreak games with faster time controls will be played:
• A match consisting of four rapid games with 15 minutes per side and a 10-second increment starting with move 1 would be played. If a player scores 2½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score is still equal, a mini-match of two rapid games would be played, with 10 minutes per side and a five-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score is equal after the rapid portion, a mini-match of two blitz games would be played, with a time control of three minutes per side and a two-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship. A drawing of lots would take place before each mini-match to decide which player plays with the white pieces.
• If the blitz mini-match are tied, a single blitz game with a time control of three minutes per side and a two-second increment starting with move 1 would be played, and the winner would win the championship. A drawing of lots would decide which player plays with the white pieces. If this game was drawn, another blitz game with reversed colors would be played with the same time control, and the winner would win the championship. This process is repeated until either player wins a game.
Players are not allowed to agree to a draw before black's 40th move. A draw claim before then is only permitted if a threefold repetition or stalemate has occurred.
The schedule
Sat 23 Nov Opening ceremony and technical meeting
Sun 24 Nov Rest day
Mon 25 Nov Game 1
Tue 26 Nov Game 2
Wed 27 Nov Game 3
Thu 28 Nov Rest day
Fri 29 Nov Game 4
Sat 30 Nov Game 5
Sun 1 Dec Game 6
Mon 2 Dec Rest day
Tue 3 Dec Game 7
Wed 4 Dec Game 8
Thu 5 Dec Game 9
Fri 6 Dec Rest day
Sat 7 Dec Game 10
Sun 8 Dec Game 11
Mon 9 Dec Game 12
Tue 10 Dec Rest Day
Wed 11 Dec Game 13
Thu 12 Dec Game 14
Fri 13 Dec Tiebreaks (if necessary)
Sat 14 Dec Closing ceremony
All games start at 5pm local time, 2.30pm in India, 9am in London, 4am in New York.
The see-saw middlegame transitioned into a balanced endgame, where Ding’s slight initiative was neutralized by Gukesh’s highly accurate moves. The fearless Indian challenger defended brilliantly, even rejecting a draw offer by threefold repetition to extend the game into a fifth hour despite an inferior position, before they settled for a peaceful result after 51 moves.
It marked the second time in three games Gukesh declining a draw offer after Sunday’s sixth game, when his 26...Qh4!? drew audible gasps from the gallery assembled outside the sound-proof playing hall. But the challenger admitted on Wednesday that he’d misjudged the position and wouldn’t have pressed forward otherwise.
Ding Liren finally forces a draw, leaving the match tied at 4-4 with 6 games to go! #DingGukesh pic.twitter.com/bg9dnO71rZ
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 4, 2024
“This position where I didn’t [accept the draw by repetition], I didn’t think I was in much danger,” Gukesh said. “I always thought with his weak king and my strong pawn on b3, I should have play. I thought maybe I might even have some chances. But OK, yeah, it was just a misjudgment of the position.”
Similarly, Ding said he never felt like he was winning at any point, despite the evaluation bar that spiked in his favor when the engines determined Gukesh’s 28...Be6 was a blunder.
“Today during the game I didn’t realize I was winning at some point,” he said.
Ding entered the scheduled three-week match at the Equarius Hotel having gone 28 classical games without a win, a dreadful run of form that saw him drop to 23rd in the world rankings and prompted the oddsmakers to install him as roughly a 3-1 longshot. But he sprang a major surprise in Game 1 by winning as black, dramatically ending the 304-day winless streak and delivering the opening salvo in a contest of mounting intensity.
Game 2 was a tame 23-move draw, before Gukesh struck back with a win in Game 3. The fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh games were each draws.
The competition resumes on Wednesday with Gukesh playing as white in Game 9. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared the champion at Resorts World Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s southern coast.
