Chess – World Chess Championship: Men staring at boards

Actually, things seemed clear beforehand. The absolute majority of the chess world was pretty sure of one thing: defending champion Ding Liren would see no country in the fight for the world championship, and his challenger, 18-year-old Dommaraju Gukesh from India, would definitely pick him apart.

The reasons for these predictions are obvious. After Ding Liren beat the Russian Jan Nepomnyashchi in a highly dramatic match a year and a half ago, the Chinese lost his footing somewhat. After winning the title, he said that if he had lost, he would have quit professional chess. For a while it seemed as if Ding’s victory was a far greater tragedy for him than defeat ever could have been. His performance collapsed completely, he had to endure months of depressive phases, inexplicable mistakes were followed by lapses in concentration, and things sometimes went so badly that his opponents expressed pity.

Defending champion Ding in low form

But miraculously, Ding Liren has stabilized in recent months. Even though he won a few games convincingly, he has solid ground under his feet again. The 32-year-old sees it that way himself: He’s definitely not the favorite, but he hopes he can work his way into the match, Ding said before the final of the World Chess Championship. The Chinese has already proven that he can fight back even after bitter defeats in the last title fight against Nepomnyashchi; Maybe also because, looking at his delicate, fragile-looking face, you don’t trust him at all.

But his current opponent also knows how to surprise. Before the Candidates Tournament a year ago, there weren’t very many people on Dommaraju Gukesh’s bill. It is a bit of a shadow hanging over this World Championship that in the end it will not be the strongest chess player in the world who will triumph, because that is still the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen. And after that nothing comes for a long time and then probably Fabiano Caruana from the USA. But Carlsen is tired of the nerve-racking World Chess Championship, and Caruana was unable to qualify.

Instead, the younger generation is pushing forward, including Gukesh, who is 18 years old. The World Cup in Singapore is considered a battle of the generations, because at 32 years old, Ding Liren is probably already past his peak. And Gukesh has had a formidable year in chess; Among other things, he won gold twice at the Olympics in September, once with the team and once as an individual player on the first board. Nevertheless, he is currently only number five in the world.

Gukesh, the big calculator

Gukesh’s game is one to be reckoned with. Compared to other players of his stature, he lacks intuition and a sense of tactical and strategic finesse. He has to check everything, so he has a hard time in the short Rapid, Blitz and Bullet formats. And the Indian has another disadvantage at his tender age: he doesn’t know the format yet. Up to 14 games against the same opponent, this incredible physical and mental strain of sitting at this table almost every day for more than two weeks and staring at the board for hours until it starts to flicker; Ding Liren has the edge over him.

That was one of the reasons why Magnus Carlsen did not want to readily agree with the general consensus that it would be a landslide victory for the young Indian: »Of course Gukesh is the big favorite and if he strikes first he will win the match without any problems win. But the longer it goes without a decisive game, the better it is for Ding Liren, because he has the ability but not the confidence.

That’s how it happened. In the first game, Ding surprised his opponent with a very aggressive variation in the French defense, which also showed: The Chinese may lack self-confidence, but Ding is not afraid. Rather, he seems determined not only to wait for the opponent to make mistakes, but also to create opportunities for himself. This is also reflected in his entire habitus on the board. With a determination that he had hardly seen before, he repeatedly sought Gukesh’s gaze before and during games. This delicate, friendly man constantly has his chin up and tries to entangle his opponent in mind games.

Surprise and revenge

In the first game he overran the otherwise stable Gukesh in an attack on the queenside, at the end of which he had three pawns more on the board. After move 43, Gukesh had to give up. The second match, however, was somewhat unspectacular. After almost three hours and 23 moves, they agreed on a draw. Game number three on Wednesday followed in the spirit of the first, although it started as a fairly quiet Queens Gambit declined. But Ding soon placed his white bishop on Gukesh’s penultimate line, a move that very few chess players are actually able to understand: Because what does this bishop want, all alone and unprotected? But the computer thinks this move is fabulous, so there will be a good reason to venture so dangerously far forward.

Gukesh remained unimpressed and played his position very coolly, while Ding was gradually pushed into the defensive. As good as his bishop move might be in theory, it made coordinating the pieces difficult. Too difficult for the Chinese, who had to give up his bishop at some point. Afterwards we saw the Ding Liren of the past few months again for the first time. He seemed dejected, downright unhappy.

The rest day on Thursday came at just the right moment for the Chinese to collect himself and decide what little magic he wants to present in the next opening. There’s no real reason to be upset anyway: two people are meeting on equal terms, and it doesn’t matter at all that it’s not the nominally strongest players in the world who are dueling here. The magic of this World Chess Championship unfolds even without these superlatives. We have a match, it’s fantastic!