The FIDE world chess championship battle between holder Ding Liren and challenger D Gukesh spiced up quite early, with the Chinese grandmaster winning game 1 before allowing his opponent to level the score in Game 3. Heading into Tuesday’s Game 7, both players are tied with three points each after three successive draws.
However, former world champions like Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik have been left underwhelmed by the quality of play so far in the title showdown.
Kramnik flayed the players for calculating too much and not playing like humans.
“Frankly, I am very disappointed by today’s game (Game 6). Even Game 5 was not extremely high level, but today it was really — for a professional — it was really weak play from both players. It’s a very disappointing level,” former world champion Kramnik ranted while analysing game 6 on his YouTube channel.
“It’s such a strange game. Both players were making mistake after mistake, strategical mistakes. As if they don’t get the sense of the position. Maybe I’m old-school but it’s pretty basic! Of course, they’re both great players and great calculators. They calculate fantastically. But I expect something a bit more from a world championship match, like ideas! Human play, human concepts! If I want to enjoy chess as just a game of calculation, I would rather watch a world championship of chess engines!”
Kramnik said that he didn’t even want to analyse Game 6 too deeply because there were “too many obvious and conceptual mistakes”. He pointed out a specific instance when Gukesh could have pushed for a win in the endgame with a push of his king while also pointing out how Ding had made life difficult for himself by making inaccuracies on the board.
Ding’s predecessor on the throne, Magnus Carlsen has also been doing daily analysis on his new Take Take Take app, where he frequently opens up on how he would have played differently if he were in the shoes of either player. After Game 5, he had some harsh words for the 18-year-old from Chennai.
“Gukesh has generally not impressed me (so far at the world championship). Ding has probably done a little bit better than we thought. But we probably didn’t expect much (from Ding). And Gukesh has probably been a little bit worse,” he said.
Carlsen’s evaluation of Game 6 was that it was an “interesting” game, but he also pointed out, as Kramnik had, how Gukesh could have played for a win in the endgame with his king.
Not impressed
World No.3 Hikaru Nakamura called Game 6 a “strange game”, pointing out the paradoxical nature of the play by the end.
“For me, this was a game that was hard to understand! I thought Ding had a nice position on the board out of opening, he was up on the clock. Easy position to play. He squanders the time advantage and then wants to make a draw. Gukesh declines and plays on. Very, very hard to judge. Very strange game: even though Ding was better for much of the game positionally, it felt like Gukesh was the one trying to win the game! Really hard to understand the psychology behind this game,” said the American grandmaster on his YouTube recap.
The American went as far as saying that he was unable to understand what the world champion’s strategy for the match was.
In Game 6, Gukesh made a daring attempt to keep the game going despite being in a worse position when he could have ended the game in a draw early with one move (moving 26…Qh4 instead of playing 26…Qe7). Ding, at that stage, had already signalled he was ready to head into the rest day with a draw. But Gukesh, instead of repeating the position for the third time, played a different move, thus signaling he wanted to grind on.
Kramnik was livid at Gukesh’s tactics and exhorted some pragmatism considering the Indian is playing at the biggest stage of all.
“I understand it could have been some kind of an idea to play for a win but it’s a very big misjudgement of the position. Obviously, white (Ding) is much better here. Zero doubt. Modern-day players are so much into calculating variations. Black’s position (Gukesh’s position) is practically on the edge of losing. I don’t understand! This is a world championship match. The decision here should be completely automatic.”
Heading into Game 7, Carlsen predicted a “fight” solely because that’s how games in which Gukesh plays with white have been at the world championship so far. But he did have a sobering analysis of the match situation for the Indian prodigy.
“We’re almost down to a 60-40 match, in Gukesh’s favour. The odds are getting better and better for Ding. If he doesn’t win the next game, we’re closing in on a very even match,” said the world no 1.
