Gukesh Dommaraju had been playing great all year, Ding Liren terribly. Gukesh showed great nerves at the Candidates and the Olympics, while Ding has looked fragile since winning the title in April of 2023. And so the result of game 1?
“Obviously”, Ding wins - and in good style, excepting one (very) bad move (27…fxe6). Both players seemed nervous at time, and while Ding’s moves were generally good his calculations - or the occasional lack thereof - weren’t always spot on. He twice missed important tactical tricks from Gukesh that could have won or drawn the game, had he (Ding) not had a lucky tactical resource in both cases.
Despite these errors, it was a good game by the champion. Playing the French was a gutsy opening decision, and his prep in a sideline of a sideline was very good. He convincingly outplayed Gukesh, made active moves, didn’t see ghosts, and excepting his 27th move completely outplayed the challenger.
It’s still early though, and the history of World Championship matches offers the challenger plenty of reasons to remain hopeful. In the first World Championship match, Johannes Zukertort lost the first game…then won four games in a row. (And if that’s not enough reason for hope, Wilhelm Steinitz came back from that deficit to win the match going away.)
In the second title match, Steinitz lost game 1 to Mikhail Chigorin, and went on to win the match. Likewise in his second match with Chigorin a few years later.
Let’s skip ahead to more modern times. In 1954 Vasily Smyslov not only lost game 1 to Mikhail Botvinnik, but games 2 and 4 as well to suffer a 0.5-3.5 deficit. After game 11, he was in front.
Tigran Petrosian lost game 1 to Botvinnik in 1963, but went on to win the match comfortably. He suffered the reverse fate in 1969, winning game 1 against Boris Spassky but eventually losing the match. That was in turn Spassky’s fate against Bobby Fischer three years later: he won the first game (and game 2, by forfeit) before getting run off the board from games 3-10.
The first, unfinished match between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov is an extreme case: Karpov didn’t win game 1, but did win games 3, 6, 7, and 9. The match was the first to six wins, and Karpov went up 5-0 after game 27. He didn’t win another game, and the match was eventually stopped after Kasparov’s second straight win and third overall in game 48.
In even more recent matches, since reunification, there have been plenty of matches in which early failure proved no obstacle to that player. Veselin Topalov was down 2-0 to Vladimir Kramnik in 2006 but managed to take the lead before eventually losing in a rapid playoff.
In 2010 Topalov was Viswanathan Anand’s challenger and won game 1, but eventually lost the match. Two years later Anand again lost first - but in game 7, not game 1 - against Boris Gelfand, but immediately struck back to level the scores on the way to winning in a rapid tiebreak.
Similarly, in 2016, Magnus Carlsen lost game 8 - the first decisive game of the match - to Sergey Karjakin, but won game 12 to force a rapid tiebreak that he eventually won.
Finally, while it was game 2 rather than game 1, Ding Liren started off trailing Ian Nepomniachtchi in their 2023 match. In fact, he had to make up a deficit three times to reach a rapid playoff, which, of course, he won (if he hadn’t, the current match would have Nepo facing the challenger).
It would be silly to say that losing first is a good thing, but to judge by history it hasn’t been such a terrible thing, either. Gukesh will have his chances, and considering that Ding initially threw away a winning position in this game and then twice was bailed out of what would have been blunders by unforseen resources, we shouldn’t leap to conclusions about Ding being “back” to peak form. There’s all to play for.
Turning to blog “business”: I’m presenting the subscribers’ version of the game file for non-paying subscribers this time around; in subsequent games, they’ll receive a stripped-down version of the analysis. This way those considering signing up for a paying membership will have a better idea of what they’ll receive. The video will be offered to subscribers only, however. Here’s the game analysis, and I’ll figure out how to send the video to subscribers a bit later - stay tuned.
Shaping up to be a fun match!