“Today, after some quick check(s) I had some advantage which I didn’t realise, so there is something to improve,” Ding Liren said after game 5 of the Chess World Championship, in which he let Dommaraju Gukesh off the hook by not pushing for a win in a much superior position.
This is an instructive observation from the reigning world champion. For the whole year now, it’s plagued Ding — he has previously admitted to the well-documented problems of 2024 being centred around his inability to convert advantageous positions into wins.
While the honesty that came with the rarity of a player admitting such a big issue midway through a world championship is refreshing, it will also be a massive concern for Team Ding: how was the champ’s assessment during the game was so far off what the actual position was?
This misjudgment has had a curious knock-on effect in Ding’s refusal to elongate games and squeeze out a result and an over-eagerness to accept an early draw. Most experts, including Magnus Carlsen, had commented on this after game 2 — but game 5 highlighted it even more starkly. Perhaps, it is a sign that he’s not willing to make it a physical five/six-hour contest against someone as much younger than him as Gukesh is. Perhaps it’s a function of his confidence (or lack thereof).
In this game 5, Ding was once incredibly solid after an opening choice from Gukesh that had perplexed many experts, who thought it was too safe an option. Gukesh then put himself into further trouble with a blunder on move 23, when he chose to take Ding’s bishop on e5 with a pawn instead of his rook. Ding immediately took advantage of it, by finding the accurate response and giving himself a sizeable advantage according to the engine.
After that blunder on move 23, Gukesh admitted that he was very worried about an attack from Ding’s rook on his queen side, which could’ve ended with the 18-year-old in an unredeemable position… and this is when Ding said he didn’t spot that rook move.
By move 29, in essentially offering the draw by playing a retreating move, it seemed as if Ding was just happy to take the half-point on offer with black pieces, even though he rubbished any such suggestion, saying that he just tried to play his best chess.
It’s still a really good position for Ding to be in, with the scores level and him having played one game less with white pieces. However, if his games with white so far are anything to go by, he’s just chosen solid positions without much scope for a decisive game. That may change only if he realises now that the onus is on him to make some play and further his chances of defending his crown.
“The results [in the first five rounds] are not ideal because I had some chances in some games to lead by some points, and it’s even,” he said.
For Gukesh though, this game was another wake-up call, although he eventually kept his cool and managed a difficult position nicely. He immediately realised on that 23rd move that he had blundered and was annoyed about it. But he put that away and played the best moves in the position to force Ding to play the moves to take the initiative, which he refused to do.
The gradual change in Gukesh’s body language from move 23 to move 29 was very visible too. The initial shock of the blunder led to him shaking in his chair, his stoic face alone was not doing a good job of hiding his annoyance. However, as the moves wore on, he gradually became more comfortable in his chair, before eventually leaning back when Ding retreated with his bishop.
Still, in two of his three white games so far, Gukesh has made potentially decisive mistakes in the middle game, which he needs to iron out of his system. Based on Ding’s two games with white so far, it has looked as if this world championship will be decided by what Gukesh does with white, so he cannot afford to make these mistakes.
The ability to defend from a poor position and clear his head after a blunder was excellent, but Gukesh will probably realise in his analysis that he should never have been allowed to play out that draw with as less tension as there eventually was.