Chennai, Nov 26 (UNI) The second game of the FIDE World Championship between Ding Liren of China and young Indian Challenger D Gukesh ended in a solid draw.
In an Italian opening with Giuoco Pianissimo variation, both players decided to play it safe, avoiding any major complications.
Successive exchanges followed after which a draw was agreed by threefold repetition on move 23.
Both Gukesh and Ding got half a point each.
The experienced Chinese, who is keen to retain the title, leads the table 1.5-0.5 pts.
After the game, Ding Liren recognized that “My basic idea was to play carefully, and I was fine with a draw. I remembered that my second said that after 12.b3 it was 0.2 according to the computer, so
I may have missed some opportunities”.
This approach was fine for Gukesh. “I just wanted to play a good game,” he said.
“With Black so early in a match you don’t want to do anything stupid. Yesterday I was feeling good, I was fresh and confident, just that I missed a few tactics which can happen to anyone at any time’, he said.
The key moment of the game was move 14.Rdc1. Already out of preparation, Ding Liren abandoned the open file in order to avoid exchanges and regroup. However, it soon became clear that his plan had backfired. “The move Rc1 is a typical idea in this kind of structure but I don’t think it’s a good move in the game, because I didn’t know how to develop while he has such a strong knight on d4.
In fact, later on, I moved the rook back to d1, which means I am not happy with rook to c1” he lamented after the game.
In contrast, Gukesh was quite happy. “Today was a good day and hopefully we will have many more good days coming”.
The third game of the match will take place on Wednesday and Gukesh will play with White pieces.
