I’m old enough to remember when practically every World Championship game finished with a winner. Ah, those were the good old days…six days ago. Now the gravitational attraction of the finish line is making risk increasingly unappealing, especially for Ian Nepomniachtchi with his one-point lead, and so the games are becoming more solid and "correct”. (I suspect that the players also needed a little time to get “warmed up”, and so they’re also playing better.) Wins are becoming scarce, and this is of course completely fine for Nepo.
For Ding Liren, it’s another matter entirely, but for now he’s still playing correctly with Black, hoping to strike paydirt with the white pieces. We’ll see if that strategy works on game 12, on Wednesday. (Tuesday is a rest day.) Today the players tested another 3…a6, 6.d3 Ruy Lopez, a variation they played in game 5 as well, won by Nepo. He varied from that game, going for 8.a3 instead of 8.c3, and then Ding varied from an online rapid game they played last year, choosing 8…Na5 here instead of 8…0-0. The players followed earlier games they had played against other super-GMs for several more moves, finally leaving theory with 14…Bg7. Ding’s next move was a minor inaccuracy (though a typical and decent idea), but Nepo’s imprecise 18th and 19th moves eliminated whatever tiny plus he may have had.
In fact, Nepo’s 19th move initiated the longest series of captures I can recall seeing with 15 consecutive captures in total. It’s not the record (have a look here and click the relevant link in the “Captures” box), but it’s still very impressive. Anyway, the upshot after those captures, and then a few more, was that White reached a pawn-up rook ending with all the pawns on one side, but the only way to keep the pawn was to repeat moves. Repeat they did, and after less than two hours of play the game was over.
So, it’s 6-5 for Nepo with three games left. Players have come back from such a deficit in prior World Championship matches, so Ding fans should not lose hope. We’ll see; for now, here’s today’s game, with my annotations.