Indian challenger D Gukesh lost the 12th game against defending champion Ding Liren of China to allow his opponent bounce back and level the World Chess Championship match on Monday. The 18-year-old Gukesh was ahead by one point after he notched his second win of the match on Sunday, which came after seven consecutive draws, but Liren’s win on Monday brought the things on an even keel. The two players are now tied at 6 points each with just two games left in the 14-round classical time control format, still shy of 1.5 points in order to win the title. The remaining two games will be played on Wednesday and Thursday, after rest day on Tuesday. Irrespective of what happens in the next game on Wednesday, the match will go the distance (14 games) and more likely there will be tiebreaker — where games are of shorter duration — to determine the winner.
The 32-year-old Liren had won the opening game before Gukesh emerged victorious in the third game. The second, and the fourth to 10th games were drawn.
In what was the first victory for Liren with his white pieces, Gukesh’s preparation did not come as good as the other 11 games that he played here.
The start was an English opening by the Chinese and much to the surprise of the fans, Gukesh went for a position that led to a Benoni defense with colours reversed.
Gukesh started to miss out creating counter play in the middle game as white played just normal developing moves. By the 15th move, though less on time on the clock, white had a small advantage as a central breakthrough looked inevitable, giving Liren the space advantage.
Gukesh’s 17th move did not help his cause as white was able to get the desired break in the centre. Five moves later, another error by Gukesh gave Liren a huge advantage.
Liren’s central pawn made a foray to the sixth rank in what was a near-decisive blow on the 27th move. Gukesh had to part with a couple of pawns. Adding to Gukesh’s woes was an imminent rook invasion.
The game ended through a fine tactic by Liren who sacrificed a rook to force matters. The game ended in 39 moves.
For Gukesh, much would depend on how he does in his last remaining white game after the final rest day on Tuesday.
Liren has proved again that he is a tough nut to crack and his second victory in the match was pretty much one-sided compared to many other games in the match that had chances for both sides.
In the previous world championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, Liren had to come back from behind as many as three times before being crowned the world champion.
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