Ding Liren looked vulnerable in the first two games of his World Championship match with Ian Nepomniachtchi, having trouble in game 1 before making a draw and getting crushed with White in game 2. Suddenly, everything has reversed in the last two games: a slip in game 3 forced Nepo to find a few good moves to make a draw with White, and now a blunder in an objectively fine but subjectively challenging position has allowed Ding to equalize the match. (Now we’ll see if Nepo has learned something from his match with Carlsen about psychological resilience. Hopefully he’ll do better than this fellow did - catch the commentator’s remark at about 5:51 of the video, followed by what happens a grand total of four seconds later.)
The game was an English with 1…e5, with Ding choosing 4.e3. The players were quickly in new territory (at least with respect to the database; I don’t know when they were out of prep), and after 10.Bxf4 exf4 11.0-0 White enjoyed a large pawn center which was compensated by Black’s chances of a kingside pawn storm. The next big transition came when Nepo played 14…Na5, which was well-met by 15.c5. This pawn sac enhanced White’s center while leaving Black’s knight out of play on the edge of the board. Black’s position looked awful, but was always objectively okay until he played 28…Nd4. This allowed an exchange sac that gave White a winning advantage, all the more so after Black’s 30th move handed Ding the f5 square for his knight. Ding had no trouble converting his advantage and did so, powerfully. Now he’s confident and enjoys the initiative in the match.
Will Nepo bounce back? We’ll see on Saturday; tomorrow (Friday) is a rest day. Meanwhile, here’s the game, with my notes.