2 weeks Ago
D Gukesh Ding Liren got the draw that he wanted with black pieces. But the manner of it raised certain questions and there are no clearcut answers to them. After a 40-move draw in the fifth game in Singapore on Saturday that took less than three hours, the 14-game World Chess Championship match between challenger D Gukesh and reigning world champion Ding stands at 2.
5 points apiece. The Chinese world No. 23 will play with white pieces in the sixth game on Sunday before Monday’s rest day.
It was the second successive draw and the first game of the series where Gukesh wasn’t decisive with white - he had lost the opening game and won the third. After playing well for most part of the game and defusing possible threats to his position, Ding seemed to have Gukesh in trouble. But he did not press to gain a more concrete advantage in the knight, bishop, rook and pawns endgame.
That prompted a sharp response from legendary Judit Polgar during the Chess24 webcast. She said it seemed that Ding had pre-decided that he would draw with black pieces and was not sharp enough -- at least to press harder for a win -- when the opportunity presented itself. Of course, she also sugar coated it, saying she is not aware about his mental state, energy and confidence level.
Gukesh implied at the press conference that his position could have been difficult to defend had he played 25.b3 instead of 25.f3.
He also colourfully described that he “hallucinated” and “blundered”. But he did not explain his choice of going for a position which did not maximise his strength, and the fact that he also underestimated black’s counterplay during the critical phase. Before the start of the match, it was generally believed that queenless games would bring the endgame grind into the picture, but it would also blunt Gukesh’s middlegame prowess.
The 18-year-old world No. 5 allowed the queen exchange easily on Saturday before the 10th move. Of course, the idea was to deny black a chance to castle as the white queen had to be taken with the king.
But Ding showed his prudent choice of manoeuvring, in this phase. He took his king back to the back rank, exchanged one rook and brought his two knights into the game. Gukesh did show some aggression with a g3-g4-g5 push.
But that also meant he had to reroute the knight with its three successive moves. And after giving away that knight for bishop (for a relatively clear path to e-pawn), he seemed to have missed Ding’s 23..
.Nd3. Later, Gukesh implied that he did not miss it but did not understand its wider implications.
At that point, the computer made a major shift: it predicted 36% chances for Ding win and only 6% for Gukesh (with 58% for a draw). With the black pawn coming to d3, Gukesh had to find the correct defensive resource. And Ding allowed that easily, which led to the remaining rooks being exchanged.
After the dust settled, it was clear that with just the opposite-coloured bishops and Gukesh having an extra pawn (5 vs 4), was not going to be enough for any decisive headway. The players repeated moves thrice instead of agreeing to a draw despite making the time control (agreed draw are allowed only after 40 moves). Both players didn’t face any time trouble.
They had about 55 minutes each for the 20 moves before the time control. Though Ding consumed an excessive amount of time for two obvious moves, it didn’t have any wider implications. Earlier, the ‘exchange variation’ (3.
exd5) against Ding’s French defense raised some eyebrows. The first game was played in the same opening but in Classical, Steinitz variation. Stay updated with the latest from IPL Auction 2025 , including the final squads of all 10 teams – MI , CSK , RCB , GT , RR , KKR , DC , PBKS , SRH , and LSG .
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