As D Gukesh hunkered down over the chessboard, head in hands trying to find his way out of the complication in the miniature battlefield in front of him, Ding Liren took a moment to stretch his arms behind his chair. Then, despite everything — the match situation, the tension of the game, the attacking ability of his opponent — the Chinese world champion yawned.
The teenager across the table was scrambling at that point, both on the clock and on the board, needing to make 24 moves in 34 minutes. The evaluation bar was snaking upwards, indicating that Ding had a chokehold on Game 12. Gukesh’s pieces had no good squares to jump on. When Ding had made his 17th move (17.Qd2), Gukesh had almost an hour on the clock. By the time he responded, he had just 33 minutes left.
Even after spending all that time, it was not the kind of move that unlocked a door for escape. In fact, Leela Zero, a neural network chess model, raised Ding’s chances of winning the match from 38.2 percent to 51.9 percent immediately after Gukesh’s 17th move (17…Bg6).
Barely an hour later, Gukesh threw in the towel. For the fourth time in two years, Ding had pulled a rabbit out of the hat just when he needed to: winning a game at the world championship when he was trailing after a defeat.
The Chinese grandmaster did this three times to Ian Nepomniachtchi to force the battle into the tiebreaks, where he eventually prevailed. He has now done it to the 18-year-old from India right after losing to him in Game 11 on Sunday.
With two games remaining in the 2024 world chess championship, the prospect of tiebreaks appears increasingly likely as both players are deadlocked on six points each with two wins each.
How does he keep doing this time and again?
“Just by chance,” Ding told grandmaster Maurice Ashley at the post-match press conference when asked how he finds the strength to bounce back time and again.
“Yesterday was a difficult game to deal with since I was much better at one point and just spent too little time at critical moments and spoiled a very good position. I continued my normal routine. Had dinner, slept earlier and got refreshed for today’s game.”
Ding’s predecessor Magnus Carlsen has predicted that the most likely scenario after his defeat in Game 11 was that Ding Liren would “crumble”. Even before the world championship started, many elite grandmasters had said that they feared it would turn out to be a “massacre”.
Rising to the challenge
But Ding showed he is made of sterner stuff, even if he had not played his best chess in Singapore.
“This is Ding’s best game in the past two years. This is his real strength when he is in good form. What a statement to make after a horrible blunder yesterday!” said Susan Polgar on X. “For those who said that Gukesh would destroy, demolish, humiliate, and massacre Ding, they were all wrong! As I said all along, this will be a close match, and it will be.”
It was one of those games where Gukesh didn’t really make any massive mistakes. It was death by tiny inaccuracies and marginal gains made on every move that eventually added up to a massive advantage on the board.
The evaluation bar could only offer up the following four moves from Gukesh as inaccuracies: 20…Bf6?!, 22…Bg5?!, 26…Qd7?! And 36… Rc4?!.
But so clinical was Ding on Monday that by the middle game, Gukesh’s pieces were almost running out of good squares to be on while the champion had control of the central files.
“I just put pressure on my opponent the whole game — I did not slip like last game!” smiled Ding at the post-match press conference.
For Gukesh there is still some solace.
“Obviously, this game is a bit of a disappointment. Thankfully, it is a rest day tomorrow. Nice to know the score is still tied and that this game is not a huge blow to my chances. Will just try to play good games in the remaining two games,” said the usually unflappable Gukesh, who for once needed time to compose himself after resigning.
Over the past three weeks, it has been a cagey battle in Singapore. Ding won the first game. Gukesh won Game 3. After that, seven straight games ended in draws.
But the world championship sprung to life after Gukesh’s win in Game 11. Ding, who has been largely content to play out draws — even offering split points in Game 6 and Game 8 when in a superior position on the board — has only now started to feel the urgency to win. And win he did, not due to chance, as he tried to brush it off.
Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri, while speaking on Chess24 about the way the Ding vs Gukesh battle has shaped up over 12 games, said: “This reminds me of the movie Tenet — I completely lost the plot, but I’m just enjoying the ride!”
