World Championship, Game 6
Ding strikes back to even the match.
To continue the “win sandwich” idea from last time, who is the bread and who is the meat? As exciting as the Carlsen-Karjakin and Carlsen-Caruana matches were (/sarc), I think we can all get used to this sort of new era of rock ‘em sock ‘em chess pretty quickly. Ding Liren loses game 2, seems to be in a bad way mentally, but then plays well in game 3 and dominates Ian Nepomniachtchi in game 4. But hey, no problem, Nepo completely outplays Ding in the next game to regain the lead (and Ding admitted that this second loss hurt even more than the first). And now, in game 6 of their World Chess Championship match, Ding once again knocks Nepo’s block off.
Ding did not return to the QGD with the ridiculous 4.h3 from game 2, but neither did he return to the English with which he won game 4. Instead, it was a London System, formerly reserved to older players who hadn’t studied opening theory in 20 years but more recently a favorite of top players, especially at shorter time controls. Nepo chose a plan that leads to positions that resemble those arising from the Exchange Variation of the Caro-Kann, and Ding employed a general strategy popularized (I think) by Magnus Carlsen of clamping down on the queenside with a4-a5.
It’s one thing to know about an idea, another altogether to know what to do about it. (This reminds me of a game where I was getting outplayed by a plan I had shown to numerous students. Every move, it was “Yep, just as in [classic game X vs. Y].” I survived, but only with great difficulty.) Nepo didn’t manage to find the right approach, and was steadily and impressively outplayed. He had one chance to save the game, and it wasn’t an easy one, on move 32. After that Ding kept his grip on the game, not giving Nepo another chance. The last move was precise, forcing mate thanks to a couple of lines with a queen sacrifice.
So congrats to Ding, and once again we have a tied match. Tomorrow is a rest day, game 7 is on Tuesday, and then Wednesday is another day off before we return to the two days on, one day off rhythm. Will that extra day in between help Nepo be better prepared to handle the black pieces in game 8? And will he have something special ready for his next white game? We’ll see; for now, here’s game 6, with my annotations.
It's striking that in this and the previous game, black suffered from the mating net created by a knight on g6 supported by a pawn on h5. I wonder how many back to back WC wins have involved more or less the same mating net. If I recall correctly, Giri opined that Ding didn't see in time that the permanent weakness of the back rank due to the threat of this construction meant that his counterplay was severely limited.