Ninth game in Singapore
No winner again: World Chess Championship turns into a thriller
12/05/2024Reading time: 1 min.
The World Chess Championship remains exciting: there was also no winner in the ninth game between world champion Ding and his young challenger.
Defending champion Ding Liren and challenger Dommaraju Gukesh continued their neck-and-neck race at the World Chess Championship in Singapore. In the ninth game there was the seventh draw, which became apparent early on. Overall it is 4.5:4.5. Whoever gets 7.5 points first is the world champion; the third rest day is on Friday.
The 18-year-old Indian Gukesh had a promising position after 19 moves, but quickly gave up his advantage against the Chinese grandmaster. After a mass exchange, a pure rook endgame emerged, which resulted in the sixth draw in a row.
“It was a very precise match from both sides. It’s been very interesting so far. I missed chances, he missed chances. We showed fighting spirit and I’m looking forward to the next duels,” said Gukesh. His counterpart spoke of a “high-quality duel. It will be very hard to win.”
The game will be played at the Equarius Hotel in Singapore until December 15th. Ding and Gukesh compete against each other in a maximum of 14 classic games. A win gives you one point, a draw gives you 0.5 points. If the score is 7:7, it goes to the tiebreak in increasingly shorter times. “The draw can end at any time. It’s too early to think about the tiebreak,” said Ding.