World Chess Championship: Gukesh gets early wakeup call as Ding Liren takes exciting win in Game 1 | Chess News – Times of India

D Gukesh was ready to pounce, but he was not fully prepared for the counter-attack.
Reigning world champion Ding Liren, 32, gave the 18-year-old Indian challenger a ‘wake up and smell the coffee’ moment in the opening battle of the 14-game World Chess Championship match in Singapore on Monday.
The world No. 23 Chinese, who had accepted that he was an underdog, won in 42 moves of French defense Steinitz variation against an opponent who is world No. 5 and in red-hot form.
It was a nervy contest, rich in nuances and high on spirit. For almost five hours, the followers were glued to their gadgets and apparently so was Ding, supposedly recovering from mental cobwebs. In the process, it was Gukesh’s turn to get trapped.
The winless run of 300-plus days didn’t stop Ding from scoring his third career classical win against Gukesh – and all of them have come with black pieces. Gukesh is yet to score a classical win against the Asian giant and if he wants to avoid tiebreaks of shorter time controls, he has to win at least twice now to seal the deal. Gukesh did not make any dramatic mistakes or blunders; but there were oversights. Ding was more accurate and alert and raised the bar with good moves that his younger opponent didn’t envisage at clutch moments.
Once a regular opening, the French defense became extremely rare at the World Championship level since the 1978 Match onwards. And Ding last tried it against Nepo last year in the seventh game, also with black, and lost it. But this specific line – Classical Steinitz variation (named after the first ever world champion) was the first occurrence at this stage.
Only one pawn and a knight were off the board till the 25th move as the players tried to wrest control. Though Ding castled late (31st move), his two knight moves (18..Nb2 and 32..Nd3) had precision written all over. Ding acknowledged it was a great win, but he was lucky too. “I was worse out of the opening but overall, I played well. I thought he (Gukesh) might get nervous at the start of the match and hence I tried to play something unusual that I have not tried recently. And it worked to perfection.”
Gukesh accepted that it’s not a great start in his bid to become the youngest monarch of the sport. “All depended on alertness,” he said at the press conference later. “I made a tactical oversight (GM and commentator Judit Polgar thought the mistakes were strategic). It can happen. I expected nothing else but the best version of Ding. Now, it gets more exciting since I am trailing.”
Saying that he was playing on his own (out of the book) after Ding’s 10th move that led to his first long thought, with stretched for almost 21 minutes, the Indian emphasised that his gameplan for the remaining contest won’t change much. He intends to play with good energy and according to the positions and not be ultra-defensive.
For the first 10 moves, Gukesh took just 90 seconds and Ding almost 50 minutes – the pawn move needing 28 minutes and a queen-push a further 15. But 12 moves later, Ding had the clock advantage (29 mins in hand for 28 moves to Gukesh’s 24). And finally, it led to Gukesh needing to make seven moves in 45 seconds to reach the 40-move mark.
THE MOVES: 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 Bg5 23.Rc2 Rc4 24.h4 Bf4 25.Qb1 Rxc3 26.Rxc3 Qxc3 27.fxe6 fxe6 28.Ne2 Qxe5 29.Nxf4 Qxf4 30.Qc2 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 white resigned.