Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju played to a seventh straight draw in their world championship match on Saturday after 2hr 35min, leaving the $2.5m contest deadlocked at 5-5 with five games to go.
The 32-year-old reigning champion from China repeated his opening choice from Game 6 with the London System, marking only the third time it’s been played in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay.
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The players
China’s Ding Liren is defending the world chess championship against fast-rising Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju. The best-of-14-games match is scheduled to take place from 23 November to 15 December at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore for an overall prize fund of $2.5m (£1.98m).
Ding became China's first men’s world chess champion by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi last year in Kazakhstan, winning the title vacated by longtime world No 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway. But the 32-year-old from Zhejiang province has played only 44 classical games in the 19 months since winning the world title while battling personal difficulties including depression and will go off as an underdog in his first world title defense.
Gukesh, commonly known as Gukesh D, stunned the chess establishment by winning the eight-man Candidates tournament in Toronto aged 17 to become the youngest ever challenger for the world championship, finishing top of a stacked field that included Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The 18-year-old can shatter the record for youngest ever world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Karpov in their 1985 rematch in Moscow.
The format
The match will consist of 14 classical games with each player awarded one point for a win and a half-point for a draw. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared the champion.
The time control for each game in the classical portion is 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting with move 41.
If the score is equal after 14 games, tiebreak games with faster time controls will be played:
• A match consisting of four rapid games with 15 minutes per side and a 10-second increment starting with move 1 would be played. If a player scores 2½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score is still equal, a mini-match of two rapid games would be played, with 10 minutes per side and a five-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score is equal after the rapid portion, a mini-match of two blitz games would be played, with a time control of three minutes per side and a two-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship. A drawing of lots would take place before each mini-match to decide which player plays with the white pieces.
• If the blitz mini-match are tied, a single blitz game with a time control of three minutes per side and a two-second increment starting with move 1 would be played, and the winner would win the championship. A drawing of lots would decide which player plays with the white pieces. If this game was drawn, another blitz game with reversed colors would be played with the same time control, and the winner would win the championship. This process is repeated until either player wins a game.
Players are not allowed to agree to a draw before black's 40th move. A draw claim before then is only permitted if a threefold repetition or stalemate has occurred.
The schedule
Sat 23 Nov Opening ceremony and technical meeting
Sun 24 Nov Rest day
Mon 25 Nov Game 1 (Gukesh–Ding, 0-1)
Tue 26 Nov Game 2 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Wed 27 Nov Game 3 (Gukesh-Ding, 1-0)
Thu 28 Nov Rest day
Fri 29 Nov Game 4 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Sat 30 Nov Game 5 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Sun 1 Dec Game 6 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Mon 2 Dec Rest day
Tue 3 Dec Game 7 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Wed 4 Dec Game 8 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Thu 5 Dec Game 9 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Fri 6 Dec Rest day
Sat 7 Dec Game 10 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Sun 8 Dec Game 11 (Gukesh-Ding, 1-0)
Mon 9 Dec Game 12 (Ding-Gukesh, 1-0)
Tue 10 Dec Rest Day
Wed 11 Dec Game 13 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Thu 12 Dec Game 14 (Ding-Gukesh, 0-1)
Fri 13 Dec Tiebreaks (if necessary)
Sat 14 Dec Closing ceremony
All games start at 5pm local time, 2.30pm in India, 9am in London, 4am in New York.
But it quickly petered out to a balanced game and a flurry of material exchanges before the peaceful result was triggered by a threefold repetition after 36 moves, dropping the curtain on the shortest and tamest encounter of the match.
“Now the cost of one game is higher than before, but my approach and my goal is still the same: to play good games,” Gukesh said.
Ding entered the scheduled three-week match having gone 28 classical games without a win, dropping to 23rd in the world rankings and prompted the oddsmakers to price him as roughly a 3-1 underdog. But he sprang a major surprise in Game 1 by winning as black, dramatically ending the 304-day winless streak and delivering the opening salvo in a contest of mounting intensity.
Game 2 was a 23-move draw, before Gukesh roared back with a win in Game 3. The fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth games were each draws.
The fifth-ranked Gukesh, an 18-year-old native of Chennai, is bidding to shatter the record for youngest ever undisputed world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Anatoly Karpov in their 1985 rematch in Moscow.
The competition resumes on Sunday with Gukesh playing as white in Game 11. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared the champion in the world title match at Resorts World Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s southern coast.
If the score remains equal after 14 contests, a series of tiebreak games with faster time controls will be played. That’s how Ding won the title last year over Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.
While Ding has been regarded as the underdog in the match due to his unremarkable form, he would go off as a slight favorite if the match was decided in rapid or blitz games. And while the champion did not hide his intentions on Saturday in being content with staying on course for the tiebreaks stage, there are still four classical games to play.
“There’s no so much room to make mistakes, every lose will result in very bad situation,” Ding said. “We need to be careful with every move.”
