World Chess Championship: It all comes down to the final day after Game 13 ends in draw

Gukesh, left, and Ding Liren during the 13th game of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024 in Singapore on December 11, 2024. Photo: FIDE via PTI 

If Ding Liren needed some background music at the World chess championship, a song in Tamil — one of the official languages here in Singapore — would be a top contender: Anuradha Sriram’s Karuppu thaan enakku pidicha colouru (The colour I like is black).

But for a blip in Game 11, in which he lost with black pieces, Ding has been superb with the colour usually less favoured in chess. A draw with black pieces is considered worthier than with white. It is almost priceless when you could do it in the penultimate round of a keenly-fought, still tied World championship.

So with just one game remaining in the classical format, the match is tied 6.5-6.5 at World Resorts Sentosa. The situation is simple after Game 13 ended in a draw.

On Thursday, the winner of Game 14 will become the World champion. If it is a draw, the tie-breaks of speed chess will be played on the following day.

On Wednesday, when he had less than five minutes to make 10 moves, Ding found the only one that could salvage his position. He had to move his rook to the ‘f8’square. Any other move would have led to a possibly devastating defeat at such a stage of the match with just one game remaining.

So, he found 31…Rf8.

Not for the first time, Ding’s inner Houdini made an appearance. His defence has been top-notch here.

Ding is the defending champion in more ways than one. After he found the right defence, he was able to complete the 40 moves in the first time control.

He has struggled to do that for much of the match. It was no different in Game 13.

And Gukesh had come up with an opening surprise even before the opening. He arrived at the venue earlier than Ding, who had joked earlier about having to wait for his rival to arrive every day.

He opened by pushing his King’s pawn by two squares (1. e4), something he had done in the first game, which he had lost. As was the case in that game, Ding replied with French Defence.

Gukesh got an opportunity to put Ding in deep trouble after the latter erred with his queen on the 30th move. But the Chennai youngster missed the crucial rook exchange, and then Ding came up with that game-saving move with his rook.

It was going to be a draw from then on. And it was, after 68 moves, with a rook-and-pawn ending.