World Chess Championship 2024: Indian Grandmaster D. Gukesh vs defending champion and China’s Ding Liren sixth game

D. Gukesh and defending champion Ding Liren signed peace pact in the sixth game of the World Chess Championship in Singapore on December 1, 2024. Photo: X/@FIDE_Chess

History repeats itself. So must Ding Liren have hoped on Sunday (December 1, 2024).

At the World chess championship in Astana last year, Ding had played the opening London System in the sixth game against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and had won. He repeated that opening in the sixth game in the World title match against D. Gukesh at the World Resorts Sentosa, but could not repeat the result.

The game was drawn. It was not – in footballing terms – a dull goalless draw, though. There was a lot of action and it was well fought out. This was the third successive draw in the match, after Gukesh won the third game to equalise.

The score is 3-3 going into the second rest day on Monday.

So Ding’s quest for a maiden win with white pieces continues here. As for Gukesh, it is not at all a bad result with black. And he has plenty of time to plan his strategy for the seventh game on Tuesday.

He also may have scored a psychological point in the sixth game when he let pass the opportunity for a draw, with repetition of moves. It nevertheless went on to end in a draw, but he made his opponent work just a bit harder. Later at the press conference, he said that it was not as if he was thinking of a win from that equal position.

Ding had begun on a confident note as he blitzed out his opening moves rather quickly. He had made 20 moves in about seven minutes, making Gukesh do the catch-up.

The Indian challenger refused to trade off the queens and then could have settled for an easy draw. On the 26th move, he could have got that, had he taken his queen to the ‘e7’ square, but he chose a different square, ‘h4’. It may have been a riskier move, but it showed Gukesh clearly was prepared to press harder.

He still had to find the right moves to ensure his half-a-point. He did that. Peace was eventually signed by the duo after 46 moves, in the rook-and-pawn ending, with the three-fold repetition.

Another eight games remain in the best-of-14 match. One needs to score 7.5 points to win the World championship.

About his choice of opening, Ding said: “This time I tried to push for an advantage in the opening. Last time, also in Game 6, I won a beautiful game in the London System, so this time I wanted to repeat that success.”

The Moves:

1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 d5 3.e3 e6 4.Nf3 c5 5.c3 Bd6 6.Bb5+ Nc6 7.Bxc6+ bxc6 8.Bxd6 Qxd6 9.Qa4 0–0 10.Qa3 Ne4 11.Nfd2 e5 12.Nxe4 dxe4 13.Qxc5 Qg6 14.Nd2 Qxg2 15.0–0–0 Qxf2 16.dxe5 Rb8 17.Nc4 Be6 18.Rd2 Qf3 19.Re1 Bxc4 20.Qxc4 Qf5 21.Qxc6 Qxe5 22.Qd5 Qe7 23.Qd6 Qg5 24.Qd5 Qe7 25.Qd6 Qg5 26.Qd5 Qh4 27.Red1 g6 28.Qe5 Rbe8 29.Qg3 Qh5 30.Qf4 Qa5 31.a3 Qb5 32.Rd4 Qe2 33.R1d2 Qf3 34.Kc2 Qxf4 35.exf4 f5 36.h4 e3 37.Re2 Re7 38.Kd3 Rfe8 39.h5 gxh5 40.Rd5 h4 41.Rxf5 Rd7+ 42.Kc2 Kg7 43.Rg2+ Kh8 44.Re2 Kg7 45.Rg2+ Kh8 46.Re2 Kg7. Game drawn.