It should have been the fifth consecutive decisive game in the World Championship match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, but in a match full of surprises the latest one was Ding’s failure to seal the deal in an exciting game 8.
With White, Ding played a delayed Saemisch against the Nimzo-Indian (4.e3 0-0 5.a3) that has become trendy, with the recent discovery 9.Ra2 posing interesting new problems for Black. Nepo was prepared and reacted well, maintaining equality until his 22nd move. Here he had to play 22…Rh8, a move he saw, but he got a little ambitious and played the very bad 22…Bxe4, which could and should have led to a speedy loss.
The first missed opportunity came on move 26, when 26.Rd3 would have won quickly, by force. Instead, 26.d7 kept a winning advantage, but one where work was still required - there was no automatic way to finish things off.
Opportunity knocked a second time after Nepo’s 31…Qh4!? Nepomniachtchi initially thought this was a brilliant way to make a draw, but realized after playing it that White could play 32.Qxd8 and eventually escape from a long series of checks. Unfortunately for Ding, he was short of time and spooked by his collapse in time trouble in game 7, and didn’t take the time to calculate the lines to the end.
After 32.Kd1(?) Nepo was alright…but not for long. An inaccurate 33rd move and a serious error on move 34 left him lost again, but Ding let this opportunity slip away as well. His 37.Bf3 was well-motivated, looking to push the knight back and only then play 38.Bc6. Instead, he needed to play the immediate 37.Bc6, because after 37.Bf3 the knight went forwards rather than backwards: 37…Nxf2!! saved the game. In fact, the burden was now on Ding to maintain equality, which he did with the excellent 40.Qxb6, played with only four seconds left on the clock. The point is that he needed to spot 41.Rg2! as a response to the otherwise winning 40…Qxd7. Nepo played 40…Rxd7 instead, and after trading queens Ding returned his extra piece, sacrificing the bishop for two pawns to reach a clearly drawn ending.
The draw (which you can replay here, with my commentary) was agreed almost immediately afterwards, and so the score after eight games of this best-of-14 match is 4.5-3.5 in Nepo’s favor. Game 9 is tomorrow/today (Friday), with Nepomniachtchi having White. Ding has had multiple opportunities to crack, psychologically, but has bounced back every time like a perfectly elastic rubber ball in a universe without friction or air resistance. He had had his chances with both colors, so there’s no reason to think that the match is out of his hands.
Meanwhile, in other news, some of you may have heard about or come across this Reddit item, according to which a couple of “1500s” (possibly the default rating when opening a new account) played some games on Lichess back in February that happened to feature some of the same openings seen in the match. As one of the “1500s” had 2700 ratings in blitz and bullet, it’s quite possible that these were training games involving players on Ding’s team, possibly including Ding himself. If so, it was a terrible blunder by them, not to realize that games played on that server are saved and at least in some way (via a Lichess opening database) available to anyone.
This is also a reason to dislike Lichess’s policy of creating such a database. A player should be able to play a game online without creating a permanent record for anyone to benefit from their preparation - all the more so if they’re able to figure out their identity. Hundreds if not thousands of hours of work are instantly wasted - or worse - the moment someone can find out a player’s identity. This isn’t just a problem for world championship contenders, either. Whether you’re a grandmaster or a club player, it’s terrible if a rival can find out your identity and look up all your games. I have no trouble with server’s allowing spectators to watch other player’s live games, but once a game is over it should only be available to that players themselves. (Or maybe only a limited number of past games should be available. The Internet Chess Club (ICC) used to make only a player’s last 20 games accessible to searches, at least for non-titled players. That courtesy should be extended to everyone.) So, yes, a massive screw-up for Team Ding, but this should be the occasion for chess servers to have a change of policy. (Will they? Probably not unless titled players threaten to boycott them en masse, but they should.)