World Championship, Game 6

Another advantage for Ding, and another draw.

There’s much to like about what Ding Liren is doing in this World Championship match. His preparation has been pretty good, and when he’s surprised by Gukesh Dommaraju he reacts well. Gukesh consistently tries to mix things up, and time after time Ding is more than ready for the sharpening of play. In all of Ding’s Black games, he has had the advantage, while never getting the worse position with White.

And yet, despite all that, the match is tied. Perhaps one problem is that while Ding is consistently able to rise to the challenge when Gukesh initiates play against him, he’s more prone to go to avoid risk when given that chance. The result is that Gukesh has been able to take extra chances, knowing that he’ll probably be able to bail out if things get a little too hot.

Something like that happened in game 6. Playing the London System, hoping for an encore of his game 6 win with the London in last year’s Championship match with Ian Nepomniachtchi, fairly deep prep soon led to a slight edge. And yet, no sooner had his preparation finished, with the slightly more comfortable position, Ding invited Gukesh to bring the game to an immediate end by a repetition. Interestingly and surprisingly, Gukesh rejected the repetition, preferring to take some risk and play on. In the press conference afterwards he downplayed the suggestion that he was engaging in some sort of psychological tactic; rather, he said, he just wanted to play. Besides, he added - and there’s no real reason to reject this explanation - White’s king position was such that he would always have good chances for counterplay.

This dynamic continued a while longer: Gukesh would play risky, sometimes slightly inferior moves to keep the game buzzing, while Ding would improve his position with safe, solid moves. Ultimately, Ding’s desire for safety won out. Had he played 34.Qg5 he would have enjoyed a nice advantage; far from a win, perhaps, but enough of a plus to offer non-trivial winning chances. Instead, he played 34.Kc2, allowing Gukesh to finally trade queens and bail out into a double rook ending that was relatively straightforward to hold. The players repeated moves shortly after the time control, and the result was the third consecutive draw, leaving the score knotted at 3-3.

Tomorrow (Monday) is a rest day, and the players will start their next three-game set on Tuesday. Here’s my analysis of game 7.