World Chess Championship: Gukesh seizes the day to level the scores
SINGAPORE: For almost 12 minutes, D Gukesh did many things while in his gaming chair. He sat on the edge of his chair to position his head over the chessboard, like a drone surveilling an area from up above before launching an ambush in preparation for the final siege.
The world champion, Ding Liren, was in a comfortable position, even if he was down on time. But one slight inaccuracy — moving the rook to h5 in the 18th move — gave the Indian teen a tiny window of opportunity.
He sensed that same opportunity so the 18-year-old took his time. When he's playing his best chess, he's the kind of player who calculates multiple lines right till checkmate. He's so precise at it he may well be a supercomputer. It, of course, has its drawbacks. He tried to do the same thing in game one when he overreached and left himself vulnerable. On Wednesday, the advantages of his calculative mind were front and centre.
This version of Gukesh was all over the Chinese 32-year-old like a rash as soon as the engine detected the inaccuracy (the eval bar moved from a small advantage to black to a tiny advantage to white). After shutting his eyes and meditating, he played the only possible engine-recommended move towards changing the game narrative — moving the king pawn two places. As soon as the world champion removed the e4 pawn, the bar had moved firmly in the Indian's favour. In the end, Liren ran out of time — the first time a match at the World Championship has seen an opponent run out of time in over 30 years — before he could reach the 40th move.
After a less-than-ideal opener on Monday and a solid but slightly unspectacular draw on Tuesday, this was the sort of 'I'm-him-performance' he needed before Thursday's rest day. "I outplayed him," he said after the match.
In a carbon copy of an opening between Arjun Erigaisi and Vladimir Kramnik last year, the Indian was still in prep. However, Liren was bleeding time. And fast. "I recalled till the 13th move," Gukesh said. "I think Arjun made some mistake but the match ended in a draw."
Just like the second game, both queens were off the board fairly early in the piece. Gukesh's pawn structure was slightly questionable when his a pawn had come out to take out the queen on b3. Liren planted his bishop on c2 to target the unprotected pawn. In hindsight, this move came back to bite the former World No 2.
This, though, wasn't clear then. Just after he had played this move, the computer was showing the game as level. However, his opponent had laid the trap. Now, the onus was on keeping calm. If he played his cards right, he would be up a bishop.
That's what he did as he slowly but surely started assembling the pieces. Even though the engine didn't favour any side, the bishop needed some rescuing. Liren miscalculated and gave his opponent a toenail. He blew open that gap and drove a tank through it. After the bishop was eventually escorted off the board, Liren's compensation was a couple of pawns but it wasn't good enough to challenge in the endgame.
"It feels great," he said. "For the past two days, I have been very happy with my play and today (Wednesday) I managed to outplay my opponent, which was very nice. I was prepared until move thirteen, I guess he was trying to remember something but maybe he mixed up at some point. My position after g5, with this plan f3-e4, seems very shaky for him."
With Liren out of preparation fairly early, he was forced to think for a long time several times. For example, he spent over 30 minutes on the 13th move. A couple of moves later, he spent close to 18 minutes.
Investing so much time in the opening is okay as long as you can make it up in the middle and end game like he was able to do in the opener. On Wednesday, though, his opponent rattled off a series of consecutive good moves. When you are down on time and know you are in an inferior position, it can be difficult to concentrate.
That came to pass as he made a couple of questionable moves before eventually running out of time after 37 moves.
The win ticks several boxes for the Indian, hoping to become the youngest title winner. It's not only his first World Championship win but also his first Classical win over Liren after three losses and two draws.
"It's an important win," he said. "I am happy with many things about this."
That's the other thing. He was better prepared, he got a chance and took it at the first time of asking. It's also the best sort of win and the worst sort of loss; just before a rest day.
Gukesh's camp will wake up feeling the world isn't all that bad after all. Liren and Co, though, could marinate in their own disappointment for the next day and a bit. Game four is on Friday with the scores level.
