The reigning World Chess Champion has gifted us a brilliant display of chess mastery.
Photo: FIDE / Maria Emelianova
Ding Liren Back to His Best, Overpowers Gukesh
Monday, December 9, 2024. What we witnessed from Ding Liren at the Aquarius Hotel was the true form of a player operating at the highest level of performance. During the game, he appeared focused, serious, and determined to recover from the poor showing of the previous day.
Some say Ding Liren plays with a fear of losing, opting for equality even when he has an advantage. Ding himself counters this by explaining that in those games, he never saw a clear advantage but did see plenty of risks that could have jeopardized his position, so he chose not to take unnecessary chances. However, today, he had no choice but to go all in to defend his title.
When the stakes are high, it’s wise to rely on what has worked best. That’s why Ding returned to the English Opening with 1. c4, a curious choice since he had only used this opening once before in the entire championship, during Game 8. Dommaraju Gukesh responded with e6 instead of the more common e5.
The game unfolded as follows: 2. g3 d5 3. Bg2 Nf6 4. Nf3 d4. Players like Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, and Magnus Carlsen were baffled by this sequence of moves and questioned Gukesh’s intentions with Black during the opening. If maintaining his lead in the championship was his goal, he should have pursued safer lines where achieving equality wouldn’t be such a headache. Instead, Gukesh left the game wide open for either side to take control.
Perhaps Gukesh aimed to assert dominance, leveraging a supposed psychological edge over Ding following his loss the day before. Or perhaps he was sticking to his team’s preparation against the English Opening. In the post-game press conference, when Maria Emelianova from PhotoChess asked about this, Ding mentioned that after 5. O-O Nc6 6. e3 Be7 7. d3 dxe3 8. Bxe3 e5 9. Nc3 O-O 10. Re1 h6, he was surprised by Gukesh’s response and had to improvise over the board—an encouraging sign for Gukesh and his team.
Following this, Ding made several waiting moves (11. a3 a5 12. h3 Be6 13. Kh2 …) because he knew that Gukesh needed to find space for his pieces. But Gukesh’s move 13. Rb8 turned out to be a pivotal moment. Both Nepomniachtchi and Anish Giri noted in their YouTube analyses that this move was overly passive, leaving Gukesh vulnerable to tactical combinations in the coming moves. Ding seized the opportunity, and by 15. Nb5, his knight was already pressuring c7 and threatening to exploit a7.
From that point on, with a few inaccuracies by Gukesh and Ding’s exceptional play, the reigning champion’s position became decisively winning.
Judit Polgar shared her thoughts on X:
“For me before today’s game, the big question was how #Ding would be able to put himself in a mindset that he had to win, and hit back immediately after yesterday’s defeat. I was thinking about #Gukesh too, whether the 18-year-old challenger would be able to calm his excitement that he took the lead and got so close to becoming the youngest world champion in history.
Well, Ding was at his best at the most crucial moment.
“Maybe it was the best game, I played in recent times” - said Ding later at the press conference.
He reacted amazingly well to the surprises faced in the opening. He was ready to keep the tension and wanted to press. He knew that today he had to push intense pressing as much as possible. He completely outplayed his young opponent.
It was an amazing game, a fantastic victory by the World Champion.
Today was the first time I felt that something happened that Gukesh was not ready for. The rest day will give him time to recover.
Tuesday is a rest day. On Wednesday, we’ll see what strategies each player brings to the board and who has the luck, skill, and determination to come out on top.
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