World Championship, Round 8 (Updated)

"Please, you win the game." "Oh no, sir; after you!" "No thanks. Draw?" "Sure - see you tomorrow."

That’s not exactly what transpired between the players, but it does describe in broad outline what happened in the eighth game of the World Championship match between Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju.

Ding played his fourth different first move in his fourth white game, going for the English. Gukesh played 1…e5, and after 2.Nc3 went for the Kramnik-Shirov line 2…Bb4, meeting 3.Nd5 with 3…Be7. It was Gukesh who varied from theory first with his excellent 7…f6, and he achieved equality, albeit in a strategically complicated position.

Ding played well initially, but from moves 20 to 25 he made a series of errors and found himself in a lost position. Fortunately for him, Gukesh chose the wrong knight to go to c5 on move 26, giving away his advantage. Two moves later, a further error (28…Be6?) left him with a lost position of his own. Ding did not take full advantage before the time control, but even afterwards he retained a significant plus. Unfortunately, his very first move after the time control was a serious error, squandering the advantage and allowing Gukesh to claim a draw by repetition.

Incredibly, Gukesh varied, despite having the (slightly) worse position and despite having just dodged a huge bullet in this game. Nevertheless, he managed to hold without too much further difficulty, and the players called it a day after Black’s 51st move.

I’ve analyzed the game, but for some reason ChessBase isn’t cooperating with my attempt to publish it to the web. I’ll try again later today. Meanwhile, game 9 is starting; let’s see if the players can remember how to win before we reach the rapid tiebreaks.

UPDATE: Here’s the game.