World Chess Championship 2024 Game 7 highlights: Ding Liren salvages draw after 5-hour, 30-minute struggle
World Chess Championship 2024 Game 7 : Heading into Game 7, both players have three points each after having won one game apiece. This is now the longest game of the match so far between Gukesh and Ding Liren.
World Chess Championship 2024 Game 7 Live Updates: Gukesh contemplates his next move in the World Chess Championship against Ding Liren in Singapore. (PHOTO: FIDE/Maria Emelianova)
World Chess Championship 2024, Game 7 Singapore: Ding Liren wriggled out of trouble to salvage a draw in Game 7 against Gukesh. After the game ended, both players admitted that Ding Liren was “outplayed” through most of game 6. Ding said that he was lucky to escape with a draw.
The 18-year-old from India held a heavy advantage on the board and on the clock in the middle game and in the end game. Ding in fact made it past time control with just seven seconds left on his clock. At this stage, Gukesh was the overwhelming favourite to win.
Ding Liren had been scrambling to not lose on time for the second time at the World Chess Championship. Remember, the world champion had lost Game 3 to Gukesh on time!
This is now the longest game of the match so far between Gukesh and Ding Liren, with Game 7 lasting 5 hours and 20 minutes.
At one stage Ding Liren had 16 minutes to make 15 moves. Playing with white pieces, the world champion spent 28 minutes on his 7th move. He got an extra pawn on the board after eight moves, but that material advantage was short-lived.
Gukesh and Ding Liren are back on the board today after their second rest day on Monday.
While world champion Ding Liren won game 1 of the World Chess Championship, it was the teenager from Chennai who won Game 3. Both players head into Game 7 of the World Chess Championship tied at three points each. Gukesh is bidding to become the youngest world champion in history.
READ MORE: At World Chess Championship, Ding not chilling… or having ice cream
The last three games of the World Championship since Gukesh’s win have ended in draws. Many elite grandmasters like former world champions Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik have slammed the level of play at the World Championship so far between the two players. Kramnik said that he was “disappointed” by the level of play. Carlsen, meanwhile, had said after Game 5 that the 18-year-old Gukesh had “generally not impressed” him. Meanwhile, world no 3 Hikaru Nakamura said that he was confounded by Ding Liren’s strategy so far in the six games.
You can check out the move by move action from Game 7 between Gukesh and Ding Liren and also play along in the interactive below. Scroll down to read our updates in real time from Game 7.
Scroll down for our coverage of Game 7 from the World Chess Championship
Live Blog
World Chess Championship 2024 Game 7: Follow our chess blog for the blow-by-blow account chronicling every pawn push and every sac on the board between India's Gukesh and world champion Ding Liren in Singapore
Gukesh contemplates his next move against Ding Liren in game 5 of the World Chess Championship in Singapore. (PHOTO: FIDE/Eng Chin An)
Right after Gukesh had played the 23rd move of game 5 and his opponent Ding Liren had responded in the blink of an eye, the Indian teenager realised that he had blundered. Instead of claiming Ding Liren’s dark-squared bishop with his rook, he had captured it with a pawn, opening the door for a sequence of events.
Dark clouds of trouble were starting to hover over him after those two moves. Gukesh knew he was about to be arm-twisted by his opponent into a position that he would have struggled to defend.
But like hitting the snooze button on a ticking bomb, Gukesh managed to postpone impending doom and claimed a draw in Game 5.
Here's how Gukesh evaded trouble like a matador sidesteps an advancing bull with just a tiny shuffle of his feet.
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