GUKESH ATTACKS BUT DING ESCAPES AGAIN

World champion finds ways to defend from challenging positions

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN

FOR nearly five hours, D Gukesh showed why he is a challenger for the World Championship. For close to five hours, Ding Liren showed why he's the world champion. In the end, the latter, with the tension ratcheting up by the second, displayed nerves of steel to, first, play precise move after precise move with the clock ticking down, before eliminating danger from the game.

The Indian teen may have had him dead to rights if he had played a specific move in the middlegame but he opted for a different line. It came with the potential of a deadly triple fork with a knight. Liren had only one move. As long as he could find it, the engines rated his chance of survival at close to 100%. If he didn't, his survival was 0%. For a shade over three minutes and 20 seconds, the Chinese 32-year-old mapped out the board in his mind and studied the lines before playing 31...Rf8. Et voila, he had found it. All the collective tension had seemingly evaporated. The sizable advantage the teen had built up from very early on had melted like ice cream under Chennai sun.