You’d think Game 11 of the World Chess Championship, where De Gukesh and Ding Liren battled to outthink each other but the Indian went on to win, was disastrous for the Chinese.
But the 26-year-old pinned his hopes on Monday’s Game 12, recalling the last dozen games he played against Ian Nepomniacchi in the summer of 2023. Exactly 26 April.
“In the last game, I made a comeback in the twelfth game, so I hope to play well tomorrow,” said Ding, who played against Gukesh on Sunday.
Ding thrived on the absolute chaos of that particular round, as he wished, and dragged Nepomniachy to the brink of destruction – in 38 moves the Russian, despite jumping at his end, calmly walked away victorious from the brink.
Game 12 caused both great excitement over the sheer drama, and criticisms decrying the diminished quality of play as only 73% accuracy was noted, including 3 epic mistakes, as Ding came from behind and unsettled a completely stunned Nepomniachi. Both got into time trouble, ran out of time, played foul after foul and then came back to throw in the towel – all of which started with 30 minutes of deep thought from White.
World champion Ding Liren made a mistake in game 11 of the FIDE World Championship and resigned immediately! 18-year-old chess prodigy Gukesh D took a big step to become the youngest classical chess champion in history!
Watch Game 11 in under 2 minutes! #Dinggukesh pic.twitter.com/QMGtx6xmXQ
– International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) December 9, 2024
Ding chose a bad position with many complications that remained complicated for a long time, such that impurities entered. After all the capture-recapture on the king-side, it was a b3 queenside move that won, and many were left asking. Why??’
Nepo’s first mistake is that he fails to find a fork in the rook and knight on move 27, then a completely missed rook capture on move 29, and the final mistake comes on move 34, where Nepo hangs the pawn f5, but hangs up. A full queen and precipitated a loss.
Pawn, game, match. Sealed from there.
Sample some great comments from fans later:
“It’s great to see that super GMs can screw up a pawn, a game, a match in one move.”
“Arm wrestling with scorpions on both sides of the table.”
“Magnus vs Fabi was boring machine vs machine, Ding vs Nepo was too human, all mistakes, mistakes.” Wow, warts!
“blunderfest”
“Ian just lost to Nepo”
While the ghost of Magnus Carlsen lingered in the game, Ding and Nepo played clumsy chess, finding fans who reveled in the Aggie error-strewn performance.
Gukesh-Ding’s game was part of the drama of nothingness in the 11th. But the Chinese will be looking for inspiration from that game 12, as he gets on the board at 2.30 IST. Ding plays white.