World Chess Championship: Some shock and some awe as Game 4 of Gukesh vs Ding Liren ends in draw

This is the second game at the 2024 World Chess Championship with white pieces where Ding Liren, the world champion from China, has accepted a draw. The other two games — Game 1 and Game 3 — where Gukesh played with white pieces ended in decisive results with Liren winning one and Gukesh winning the other.

The World Championship is now poised at 2-2 with both players having earned one victory each.

Ding did try to pose a few questions of Gukesh with his opening ideas. But after the Indian GM had managed to make those problems vanish, Ding’s pieces were sleepwalking to a draw.

As soon as Ding made his second move (1.Nf3, 2.e3), players like grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura were already frowning at the opening idea the world champion had chosen. As the American explained later, it was an opening that was “completely playable”. “Generally it’s not considered cutting edge,” he added on his YouTube recap.

But this surprise turned to shock when Ding Liren played his third move, 3.b3.

“I was shocked to see this opening in the game because frankly this is something I have played many times in online blitz events. It’s definitely not something that’s very aggressive. Objectively, it’s nothing special,” said Nakamura.

Ding Liren had a slight surprise planned in the opening phase, when he pushed his bishop to a3 in the 5th move, a position that had been spotted in a game between two former world champions in 1962, when Tigran Petrosian had caught out Mikhail Tal with it.

The idea was to pin the pawn in front of Gukesh’s king, and if it dared to move, capture the dark-squared bishop of the black army. That would allow Gukesh to capture the bishop as well, but it would spoil the black king’s chances of castling to safety.

Gukesh though was wise enough to the danger and diffused the tension with a few casual movements of his wrists, by deploying his knight and picking off Ding Liren’s bishop.

“It was not a completely new line. I had seen it somewhere, but it was a bit of a surprise when I saw it on the board. At some point, I felt that he had some slight edge, but I felt I had neutralised it,” said Gukesh in the post-match press conference.

READ MORE: In contrast to inscrutable Gukesh, Ding Liren allows the world to see how he feels

“Ding’s game strategy is simple. He wants to take Gukesh off his excellent home preparation. This forces Gukesh to spend a lot of time on the board to come up with the right ideas/moves/plans. Ding believes that Gukesh is more vulnerable when he is out of preparation and low on time,” pointed out chess legend Susan Polgar on X. “Ding got almost nothing in both white games. But it seems that Ding got what he wanted, a slow-paced, strategic game with no risks. Gukesh also got what he wanted, eliminating a black game.”

Ding's game strategy is simple. He wants to take Gukesh off his excellent home preparation. This forces Gukesh to spend a lot of time on the board to come up with the right ideas/moves/plans. Ding believes that Gukesh is more vulnerable when he is out of preparation and low on… pic.twitter.com/HUXP2pD817

— Susan Polgar (@SusanPolgar) November 29, 2024

The game seemed to be ambling towards a draw by the middle portion itself as pieces were traded off pretty quickly. Ding and Gukesh were neck and neck on the game clock and on the board.

Liren was clearly content to play out a draw, which is a puzzling strategy that goes against the thought process most players employ in matches with multiple games: push to win games with white pieces and force draws with black. But just like game 2, where the world champion had effectively allowed the game to end in 23 moves with a three-fold repetition, he was clearly looking for a draw.

In the end game, the Liren’s eyes would constantly cast furtive glances at his teenage opponent, who had eyes only for the board. With just one rook and four pawns left on the board besides the king and queen for both players, Gukesh chose to push the pawn on his f file to f5 on move 30. It was a risky move, because he had chosen to leave his king vulnerable. But with a subtle push of the pawn he was telling his opponent that he was more than happy to grind it out for a result and that the world champion would have to earn a draw, unlike Game 2, where the Indian teenager was slightly relieved with a draw after the opening game defeat.

Read More: With Game 3 win over Ding Liren, Gukesh shows again that his strongest weapon is his mental toughness

“I don’t know if it is wise to play such moves,” chuckled chess legend Judit Polgar on the Chess24 stream. “Vishy Anand was a great expert in this (situation). If he decided that a game should be a draw, he will just focus on a draw. He would have played the most efficient moves (as opposed to what Gukesh played), inviting the opponent also to go for it, exchange all the pieces and go for a draw. But I would have made a move like f5. It’s a weakening move. You’ll not have real chances to win this game.”

Gukesh, meanwhile, was happy with a draw.

“It was a solid game with black. Towards the end, I had some chances to press (for a win). But with black, that’s all you expect in a match,” he shrugged.