Bengaluru: Ding Liren arrived for Sport 4 of the World Championship on Friday with a easy plan – play a stable, positional sport with White and look forward to errors and overeagerness from his teenaged opponent. The errors by no means got here, Gukesh performed solidly, White’s positional benefit was miniscule and the sport finally petered out right into a draw.
India’s D Gukesh in motion towards Ding Liren of China on the FIDE World Championship 2024, in Singapore on Friday. (PTI)
The match in Singapore stands at 2-2 with 10 classical video games to go. The participant who reaches 7.5 factors first shall be declared champion.
Gukesh shall be glad with how he’s dealt with the match and its attendant pressures to this point – with calm and spades of pragmatism.
Ding’s seconds, Hungary’s Richard Rapport and fellow Chinese language Ni Hua, rode down the elevator with him and have been noticed alongside the world champion publicly earlier than a sport on this match for the primary time. Rapport, in his shiny floral-printed shorts, held up a double-fisted thumbs up at Ding because the reigning world champion disappeared behind a door, in the direction of the enjoying area.
Seconds are basically staff members who assist gamers with preparation and search for concepts. Gukesh hasn’t revealed his prolonged staff, aside from his common coach Grzegorz Gajewski who’s in Singapore. In an AI-powered age, the place data is on overdrive and everybody has entry to comparable instruments, with the ability to shock your opponent, get them out of guide, and lead them into unfamiliar terrain, is what gamers are sometimes searching for.
Within the present match format, gamers have 2 hours for 40 strikes with no increment. So, if you find yourself burning via your clock, it might show to be pricey. It’s already occurred twice on this match.
Ding, expectedly, switched up his opening, and selected to kick issues off with 1. Nf3 (a departure from 1.d4 in Sport 2) after which trotted out the attention-grabbing concept of 5. Ba3 – the place he positioned his dark-squared bishop on the a3 sq., with the plan to commerce off Black’s good bishop and make Black’s improvement extra lengthy drawn.
The concept was seen way back to 1962 Curacao Candidates sport when Tigran Petrosian efficiently tried the Ba3 concept towards Mikhail Tal.
Calling Ding’s opening line “a bit of a surprise”, Gukesh stated: “I think I reacted well enough. At some point, I felt like he had maybe a slight edge, but I quickly neutralised it.”
Ding, on his half stated that he had the buffer of a relaxation day to get better from the Sport 3 loss and was in a “very good mood” on Friday. “I chose this opening idea to try to surprise my opponent. It worked well, not so bad. The positional advantage was very small.”
Gukesh spent a while because the opening strikes unfolded and responded to the surprises with restraint. Apparently, after spending three video games and 117 minutes motionless, Black’s b-pawn was introduced into the sport for the primary time on this match. Gukesh didn’t crack regardless of the surprises, a few makes an attempt at provocation and was in no actual hazard. Ding’s retreating knight transfer (16…Nf3) was an early indication that he was prepared to separate factors.
Ding later revealed that he might have performed on however the attainable dangers for White in exploring concepts with solely a tiny benefit didn’t appear well worth the whereas – “I wanted to play safe.” The place liquidated into an equal rook endgame and the gamers agreed to a draw after 42 strikes.
Gukesh will play with White in Sport 5 on Saturday. Each his White video games have been decisive to this point. His technique on this match has been to go for bold play and press for a win with White and stay stable with Black. Ding has three wins with Black over Gukesh (together with one on this match) and one gruelling loss in Sport 3.
When requested which participant from the previous he’d wish to play towards, Gukesh unsurprisingly selected the troubled genius and eleventh world champion, Bobby Fischer. He was then thrown a question about numerology and whether or not, like Garry Kasparov—born on April 13 and later changing into the thirteenth world champion—he sees numbers aligning for him too (he’s 18, and will he win, he would grow to be the 18th world champion).
He didn’t miss a beat: “I believe in Fischer’s quote… just try to make good moves.”