The fourth installment of the World Chess Championship resulted in a 42-move draw on Friday. After a lot of the items had left the board, the sport ended with a three-fold repetition after a little bit dance between Gukesh’s rook and Ding Liren’s king who shuffled forwards and backwards.
That is the second recreation on the 2024 World Chess Championship with white items the place Ding Liren, the world champion from China, has accepted a draw. The opposite two video games — Sport 1 and Sport 3 — the place Gukesh performed with white items resulted in decisive outcomes with Ding successful one and Gukesh successful the opposite.
The sport is now poised at 2-2 with each gamers having one victory every.
“It’s a stable recreation with black. In the direction of the tip, I had some possibilities to press (for a win). However with black, that’s all you count on in a match,” mentioned Gukesh, happy with a draw.
Within the fourth recreation, Ding Liren began off with an uncommon set of opening strikes, as soon as once more attempting to catch Gukesh out of guard.
“It was not a totally new line. I had seen it someplace, but it surely was a little bit of a shock after I noticed it on the board. Sooner or later, I felt that he had some slight edge, however I felt I had neutralised it,” mentioned Gukesh within the post-match press convention.
The opening was one thing that made Gukesh expend some early time on the clock. However he was in a position to diffuse the stress.
“Ding’s recreation technique is straightforward. He needs to take Gukesh off his wonderful house preparation. This forces Gukesh to spend so much of time on the board to give you the suitable concepts/strikes/plans. Ding believes that Gukesh is extra weak when he’s out of preparation and low on time,” identified chess legend Susan Polgar on X.
Ding’s recreation technique is straightforward. He needs to take Gukesh off his wonderful house preparation. This forces Gukesh to spend so much of time on the board to give you the suitable concepts/strikes/plans. Ding believes that Gukesh is extra weak when he’s out of preparation and low on… pic.twitter.com/HUXP2pD817
— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) November 29, 2024
The sport gave the impression to be ambling in direction of a draw by the center recreation itself because the items had been getting traded off fairly rapidly. Ultimately recreation, with only one rook and 4 pawns left on the board apart from the king and queen for each gamers, Gukesh selected to push the pawn on his f file to f5. That was a dangerous transfer, however one which indicated to Ding Liren that he was not going to get a simple draw like they performed out in Sport 2 in 23 strikes.
However ultimately, Ding did get the draw that he was taking part in for for the reason that opening part.