World Chess Championship: Gukesh strikes back to beat Ding Liren in third game; ties scores (Ld)

Singapore, Nov 27 (IANS) India's Gukesh Dommaraju defeated reigning champion Ding Liren on time in Game 3 of their 14-game match for the 2024 World Chess Championship at the Resorts World Sentosa here on Wednesday, capitalising on an excellent opening preparation to trap one of the Chinese GMs minor pieces.

It was plain sailing for the 18-year-old challenger as he gained a big advantage on the board as well on the clock. He had a one-hour advantage after the 13th move.

With this win, Gukesh tied the score at 1.5-1.5 after three games. He had lost the first game and drawn the second before striking back with white pieces in the third.

This is Gukesh's first win in the World Chess Championship final and with 11 more games to go, he seems to be gaining momentum as he played an excellent game on Wednesday that had taken him on the verge of victory even before the clock played its role.

Gukesh was elated after the win. “It feels great. For the past two days I have been very happy with my play and today 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”.

Gukesh capitalised on a blunder by his Chinese opponent in the Exchange variation of Queen's Gambit Declined and got into a winning position before Ding failed to complete the required 40 moves in the given time and lost on time when the clock stopped after his 37th move.

The reigning world champion missed a couple of lines that left his position destabilised. Gukesh on his part played correctly and did not make many mistakes, taking control of the match. He had around nine minutes on his clock when the flag fell for Ding Liren.

The key position was in a tense queen-less middlegame. Ding’s light-squared bishop was compromised on c2 and in danger of being trapped. Instead of retreating to f5, or even developing the other bishop, Ding went onto the attack with the aggressive 18…Rh5, attacking another pawn.

“I knew my bishop on c2 was a weakness so I tried to come up with some idea to save it. In the line that I played with 18…Rh5, I missed his move 23.Ne2”, was Ding’s explanation to his miscalculation in the official press conference after the game.

Gukesh had a one-hour time advantage over Ding Liren when eventually petered down to six moves with seconds remaining on the clock as the two players followed the game played between former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik and India's Arjun Erigiasi in the FIDE World Rapid Team Championship 2023 in Dusseldorf, which ended in a draw after 72 moves. Gukesh admitted that he was aware of that game in Dusseldorf but said they deviated from it after move 13.

The 18-year-old Indian from Chennai, who is aiming to become the youngest World Champion and the second Indian after Viswanathan Anand to rule the chess world, will go into Thursday's rest day with a lot of confidence as he has recovered from the stunning defeat he suffered in the opening game.

The FIDE World Championship 2024 match is the first in 138 years to feature two contestants from Asia and the two players are competing for the title and a prize fund of 2.5 million US Dollars.

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