Game 9 of D Gukesh vs Ding Liren at the 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship promises to be another humdinger, as games 7 & 8 proved to be exciting thrillers despite being draws. The match overall is tied, with four points to each player, but today could be decisive, especially since it heads into a rest day tomorrow.
In game 9 today, Gukesh will play with white pieces and Ding with black – a scenario that has produced the only two definitive results (Ding won game 1 and Gukesh won game 3) of the match so far.
Yet, the last two games have arguably been more exciting than the definitive results, with wild swings of fortunes, as well as Gukesh rejecting a draw in game 8, when in a disadvantageous position.
Gukesh acknowledged it was a draw he should have accepted in hindsight, saying “I would have taken the draw if I thought I was worse but I did not, I had to be very precise, I missed one of his resource. I am not very sure I think the position had more tricks. The position where I didn’t repeat, I didn’t think I was in much danger. I always thought with his weak king and my strong pawn on b3, I should have play. I thought maybe I might even have some chances. But okay, yeah, it was just a misjudgment of the position.”
Gukesh had to fight back from a losing position in the game to eventually draw, but was fortunate that the defending champion didn’t realise his advantage. Ding confirmed as much later, saying “Today during the game I didn’t realise I was winning at some point.”
Yet, it was Gukesh’s novelty in the opening exchanges – a response to Ding’s favoured English opening – that caused his opponent plenty of trouble and gave Gukesh a good shot at victory. Gukesh thanked his team, saying “My team they’re been doing great job, not only ‘Gaju’ (Grzegorz Gajewski), but other team members as well, we managed to surprise him in the openings, I would like to thank my team and hopefully more interesting ideas will come.”
Game 9 begins at 2:30 PM IST on December 05, 2024.
You can follow the match in our live blog, below:
