World champion Ding Liren made a serious mistake under time pressure at the World Chess Championship in Singapore.
The 18-year-old challenger Dommaraju GukeshInder from India achieved his second victory in the eleventh game and leads 6:5 before the next duel on Monday (10 a.m. CET). Whoever gets 7.5 points first is the world champion.
After an unspectacular game on Saturday, a very exciting encounter followed on Sunday with a start that at least Ding had obviously not expected. On the fourth move, the Chinese went on the defensive and thought for 38 minutes. The Chinese had not prepared for Gukesh’s variation in the so-called Reti opening, in which a pawn sacrifice is offered early in order to attack the black center from the side.
Gukesh initially loses his advantage
After the fifth move, Ding had already used 63 minutes of thinking time, Gukesh had 50 seconds. But at least Ding managed to develop his position – and was actually in a better position after the opening. Now Gukesh started to ponder and made mistakes.
As in the game on Thursday, he gave away his advantage after the opening through hasty moves with which he wanted to put Ding further under pressure. Gukesh took more than an hour to make his eleventh move and the tension increased.
Mistake on move 28
The 28th move brought the decision under time pressure: Ding completely unexpectedly released a knight, Gukesh didn’t take long to ask and struck.
“An atypical mistake at this level, but it became clear that Ding had lost control,” analyzed the German national chess coach Jan Gustafsson at chess24. Ding now needs a win in the next three games to equalize – two of which he will play with the white pieces.