In a terrible day for chesslovers young and old, Ding made no move that took advantage of White’s primacy due to the advantage of the first move. A fully-equal endgame was reached and after barely using half their time the players repeated the position. This was a non-event marketed as a world-class sporting competition.
Perhaps Ding, knowing that Gukesh’s rating in Rapid and Blitz is far lower than at the much slower Classical time control, is content to draw the remaining games with the intent of keeping the Classical Championship by triumphing at shorter time control. This was explicitly–and in my view, cynically–done by Carlsen years ago.
Games like this one are a stain on the sport. People pay good money to go and see the contests for the World Championship–as a child, Gukesh saw for himself Anand-Carlsen ten years ago in Chennai and it’s part of his motivation.
Enjoy the interactive game viewer below, no chess knowledge required.
The match remains tied at +1=8-1 each with four games remaining.
Game 11 is Sunday 8 December 4am EST.
https://lichess.org/broadcast provides a live stream of the games.
