World Chess Championship 2024, Game 6: Nothing separates Gukesh, Ding Liren in round six as game ends in three-fold repetition draw

World Chess Championship 2024, Game 6: Nothing separates Gukesh, Ding Liren in round six as game ends in three-fold repetition draw

History repeats itself. So must Ding Liren have hoped on Sunday.

At the World chess championship in Astana last year, Ding had played the opening London System in the sixth game against Ian Nepomniachtchi, and had won. He repeated that opening in the sixth game in the World title match against D. Gukesh at the World Resorts Sentosa, but could not repeat the result.

The game was drawn. It was not – in footballing terms – a dull goalless draw, though. There was a lot of action and it was well fought out. This was the third successive draw in the match, after Gukesh won the third game to equalise.

The score is 3-3 going into the second rest day on Monday.

So Ding’s quest for a maiden win with white pieces continues here. As for Gukesh, it is not at all a bad result with black. And he has plenty of time to plan his strategy for the seventh game on Tuesday.

He also may have scored a psychological point in the sixth game when he let pass the opportunity for a draw, with repetition of moves. It nevertheless went on to end in a draw, but he made his opponent work just a bit harder. Later at the press conference, he said that it was not as if he was thinking of a win from that equal position.

Ding had begun on a confident note as he blitzed out his opening moves rather quickly. He had made 20 moves in about seven minutes, making Gukesh do the catch-up.

The Indian challenger refused to trade off the queens and then could have settled for an easy draw. On the 26th move, he could have got that, had he taken his queen to the ‘e7’ square, but he chose a different square, ‘h4’. It may have been a riskier move, but it showed Gukesh clearly was prepared to press harder.

He still had to find the right moves to ensure his half-a-point. He did that. Peace was eventually signed by the duo after 46 moves, in the rook-and-pawn ending, with the three-fold repetition.

Another eight games remain in the best-of-14 match. One needs to score 7.5 points to win the World championship.

About his choice of opening, Ding said: “This time I tried to push for an advantage in the opening. Last time, also in Game 6, I won a beautiful game in the London System, so this time I wanted to repeat that success.”