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Ding Leads Gukesh 1.5-0.5 After Tense 23-Move Draw In Game 2
Ding Liren still leads, but Gukesh is on the scoreboard in his first world championship match. Photo: Eng Chin An/FIDE.

Ding Leads Gukesh 1.5-0.5 After Tense 23-Move Draw In Game 2

Colin_McGourty
Colin_McGourty
Staff
| 90 | Chess Event Coverage

World Champion Ding Liren played the first new move in the opening of game two of the 2024 FIDE World Championship, but GM Gukesh Dommaraju defended carefully and ultimately made a 23-move, three-hour draw by repetition to claim his first half-point in a world championship match. "Today was a good day," he said, and he has the white pieces in game three, with Ding leading 1.5-0.5 with up to 12 classical games to go.

Game three starts Wednesday, November 27, at 4:00 a.m. ET / 10:00 CET /  2:30 p.m. IST / 5:00 p.m. local time in Singapore.

Match Score

Name Rating 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 Score
Ding Liren 2728 1 ½ . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5
Gukesh Dommaraju 2783 0 ½ . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.5
How to watch the 2024 FIDE World Championship
You can watch the 2024 FIDE World Championship live on Chess.com/TV and on the Chess24 Twitch and YouTube channels, while GM Hikaru Nakamura is streaming on Kick. IM Andras Toth is analyzing the games in a Chessable course. 
The live broadcast was hosted by GM Judit Polgar, GM Daniel Naroditsky, and John Sargent.
Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju make a draw in game two. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Grandmaster Game Analysis, By GM Rafael Leitao

GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed game two of the match below.

Reacting To Game One

One of the factors that makes world championship matches so intriguing is the constantly changing psychology. How will players cope with a loss, or with the potentially equal shock of winning a game, and how do they then approach the next game? In part it depends on how they saw the last. Ding felt the sudden swing in the first game may have "confused" Gukesh.  

World number-one Magnus Carlsen, meanwhile, while analyzing with IM Levy Rozman for Take Take Take, had a very harsh assessment of Gukesh's play:

"This was a very good performance by Ding, clearly his best performance in a long time, but it was also a terrible performance… it’s hard to [overstate] how bad this was from Gukesh. He didn’t make a single good decision, basically, the whole game. Everything was wrong."

He didn’t make a single good decision, basically, the whole game. Everything was wrong.

—Magnus Carlsen on game one

He felt the consolation was that Gukesh could conclude, "I cannot really play worse than I did today."

Gukesh has barely looked ruffled in the post-game press conferences. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

In the post-game press conference after game two, however, Gukesh expressed a completely different view of the game, explaining, "Yesterday also I was feeling good, I was fresh and confident, just that I missed a few tactics, which can happen to anyone at any time." 

Correct or not, that impression may have helped Gukesh keep his composure. He said of his approach to game two, "With Black so early in the match it’s not close to a must-win, so I was not going to do anything stupid—I just wanted to play a good game."

Ding Lands The Opening Surprises

Ding Liren's 1.e4 was already a minor opening surprise. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Ding dropped a hint in his pre-match interview with FM Mike Klein when he noted that his second GM Richard Rapport gave him "some interesting ideas that I can use if the match is heating up." The last match against GM Ian Nepomniachtchi started white-hot for Ding, since he fell behind after game two, and would keep falling behind and needing to hit back, which may have been why we got to see so many wild ideas from Rapport's laboratory. This time, with Ding leading, it was possible to expect, as Carlsen did, a solid approach rather than "a sharp Italian."

Carlsen was at least half right, with Ding confirming after the game, "Basically the idea was to play carefully and I’m completely fine with a draw and I’m happy with the final result." He did play the Italian, however, with his 1.e4, rather than his usual 1.d4, upsetting some pre-match polls. 

Ding revealed he's been out of his comfort zone so far in the match:

"Here, for example, for the first game I played something new in the opening, and of course it requires a lot of memory. Also today I played not a common move, 1.e4, and so I prepared a lot."

Shortly afterward he revealed he'd had to be persuaded by his second to take that decision.

The opening had to be considered a success, since 9.a5, was the first new move of the game.

It was provocative, tempting Gukesh to go after the a5-pawn with Bb4, and achieved the goal of getting Gukesh to think, before choosing to capture the bishop on c4 and then castle. That choice puzzled the former challenger...

...while Ding's unusual directions in the opening got approval from a veteran world championship second.

Gukesh's choice had been predicted, and until 12.b3 everything was going according to the plan of Team Ding. He'd gained half an hour on the clock and finally, unlike in the opening phase of day one, could take a break in his player lounge (the players have a screen showing the current position.)

Ding joked at the press conference: "We checked until b3, and my second said it’s +0.2 according to the computer—already 1-0!"

As we'd soon see, however, things weren't that simple. 

Ding Begins To Drift

Gukesh spent 12 minutes on the decision to trade off queens, and then on move 14 it was Ding's turn to work out a plan after his opponent offered a rook trade on the d-file.


The computer here was showing 14.Ne1! as a promising move, offering up the a5-pawn (after trading rooks) to get the white knight to d3 fast, but both players had dismissed the idea since Black, at least initially, could defend his own pawns. Going for a risky pawn sacrifice wasn't in the game plan. 

Instead we got 14.Rdc1, after which the black knight came to d4 and Ding was questioning his life choices. He commented:

"I thought I misplayed good opening preparation and I may be slightly worse in the middlegame. I’m not sure if my assessment was correct or not—it might be inaccurate. I think my position was very passive with a very strong knight on d4."

I thought I misplayed good opening preparation and I may be slightly worse in the middlegame. 

—Ding Liren

Ding Liren admitted his mood had been up and down during the game. Photo: Eng Chin An/FIDE.

Gukesh had a more upbeat assessment of Ding's move, but also saw a way to counter it: "It’s just a common idea, you try to keep more pieces on the board, and you try to defend c2, to get Ne1-d3, but I think I found a good formation... after which it was hard for White to really get his plan and make progress."

Ding confessed that moving the same rook back to d1 later on was an admission of defeat, though it felt that in the hands of a player with the slow-maneuvering patience of Carlsen such moves would have been accompanied not with frustration but with relish at gradually posing opponents new challenges. Ding said his feelings had been "up and down," and the shifting momentum of the game was visible to GM Judit Polgar. 

In the end, however, no blood would be spilled in game two.

Both Players Are Satisfied With A Draw

The tense standoff seemed interminable, with the early opening jousting feeling like a distant memory. GM Daniel Naroditsky commented, "Can you believe queens were on the board only seven moves ago—cavemen and dinosaurs were roaming the earth!" 

The facial expressions after the game ended were much more animated that the final stages of the game. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.

Suddenly, however, the players decided to make a draw by repeating moves, and after 23 moves and three hours of play game two of the match was over.

Both players had plenty to be happy about. Ding had kept his lead and followed his "solidity-first" game plan, while Gukesh had got on the scoreboard with the black pieces after responding "pretty decently" to an opening surprise. He summed up: "Today was a good day, and hopefully we’ll have many more good days coming."

Today was a good day, and hopefully we'll have many more good days coming.

—Gukesh Dommaraju

Game three, the last before the first rest day, promises to be intriguing, with Ding expecting action. The world champion commented, "He’s a point down and he has the white pieces, so I’m ready for a fight!"

Ding Liren was in good spirits in the post-game press conference. Photo: Eng Chin An/FIDE.

Gukesh, meanwhile, was sticking to the one-game-at-a-time approach of every sportsperson everywhere: "I will just try to play a good game, because the only thing you can do to try and win is play a good game!"

I will just try to play a good game, because the only thing you can do to try and win is play a good game!

—Gukesh Dommaraju

Gukesh is sticking to his plan. Photo: Eng Chin An/FIDE.

It's hard to argue with that logic. 

Video Playlists

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You can also follow along with the video recaps by your favorite partner streamers, like GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Anish Giri, IM Levy Rozman (GothamChess), GM Ben Finegold, GM Aman Hambleton (Chessbrah), GM Arturs Neiksans, FM Nemo Zhou, Epic Chess, and Chess Dojo in the playlist here.

The 2024 FIDE World Championship in Singapore decides the next world champion. 18-year-old Indian Challenger Gukesh Dommaraju takes on Chinese Defending Champion Ding Liren in a 14-game match, with the first to 7.5 points winning. The players have two hours for 40 moves, then 30 minutes to the end of the game, with 30 seconds added each move from move 41 onwards. The prize fund is $2,500,000, with $200,000 for a win and the remaining money split equally. If tied 7-7, a playoff will take place, starting with four games of 15+10 rapid chess.

Previous world championship coverage:

Colin_McGourty
Colin McGourty

Colin McGourty led news at Chess24 from its launch until it merged with Chess.com a decade later. An amateur player, he got into chess writing when he set up the website Chess in Translation after previously studying Slavic languages and literature in St. Andrews, Odesa, Oxford, and Krakow.

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