China’s chess grandmaster Ding Liren, right, and India’s chess grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju, left, compete during the start of the FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024.
THE FIDE World Championship is being hosted by the Singapore Chess Federation with the support of the government. The match, which is 14 games, is being contested by Ding Liren from China, the current world champion and his challenger, Dommaraju Gukesh of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, the same place as five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand.
The first game started on Nov. 25 at 5 p.m. Singapore time and all games are starting at 5 p.m. The rest days are after games 3,6,9 and 12.
There was a lot of talk by various people all over the world whether Ding Liren, 32, could handle this match after his average performance in the Olympiad compared to his challenger. However, Ding came our attacking and drew first blood by winning the first game against his 18-year-old opponent. Here is the game with crucial moments of destruction from Gukesh.
Gukesh D (2783)
Ding Liren (2728)
FIDE World Championship Match
2024 Singapore
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.f4 c5 6.Nce2 Nc6 7.c3 a5 8.Nf3 a4 9.Be3 Be7 10.g4 Qa5 11.Bg2 a3 12.b3 cxd4 13.b4 Qc7 14.Nexd4 Nb6 15.0–0 Nc4 16.Bf2 Bd7 17.Qe2 Nxd4 18.Nxd4 Nb2 19.Qe3 Rc8 20.Rac1 Qc4 21.f5?! Qd3 22.Qe1?! (22. g5 0-0) Bg5 23.Rc2 Rc4 24.h4 Bf4 25.Qb1 Rxc3 26.Rxc3 Qxc3 27.fxe6 fxe6?! 28.Ne2 Qxe5 29.Nxf4 Qxf4 30.Qc2? (30. Bc5) Qc4 31.Qd2 0–0 32.Bd4 Nd3 33.Qe3 Rxf1+ 34.Bxf1 e5 35.Bxe5 Qxg4+ 36.Bg2?! Bf5 37.Bg3 Be4 38.Kh2 h6 39.Bh3?! Qd1 40.Bd6 Qc2+ 41.Kg3 Qxa2 42.Be6+?! Kh8 0–1.
All the moves in bold are the better moves that Gukesh could have played. These were Gukesh’s mistakes which caused his destruction.
It will be interesting to see how Gukesh responds to the loss in the match.
I will be providing daily reports of the match for Marianas Variety and the readers in Saipan.
