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Game 9 A rather tame draw, although played out to move 54 with only kings left. Gukesh needs to take advantage of his opportunities while he still gets them.
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Rest day tomorrow (Friday).Comment
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Game 10 report: Ding and Gukesh are fed up with 'slow' chess, want to get the 14-game classical section over with so they can start playing real chess.Comment
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So what they are saying is that we can look forward to 4 more draws and then fireworks begin? Gukesh better be careful. Ding is known for rising to the occasion in the Nepo match and winning the critical game.
Anyways, game 10 draw.Comment
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I was pleased to see 'more exciting' chess today... I think. A new entry for my upcoming book "play chess like me" (working title).Comment
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I loved the game. What a simple concept in the opening. I was playing this opening in my first year of tournament chess (for White) and should have sruck with it. But I never played 5. a3. Maybe I should have. I also loved the final move. I should have had my engine on with commentary and sound. I would love to have heard "SNAP"! at that point. One of the simple pleasures in life.Comment
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Wake up and tune in if you missed it. Game 11 dynamic win by Gukesh. We now have a fight with three games left. and may the best man win.Comment
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Game 11 was a Benko Gambit Reversed from White, a very different line from anything seen so far in this match. It proved to be an inspired choice, unbalanced and sharp. Black seemed to be surprised, and got into a troublesome position fairly early on. Exceptionally accurate play by GM Gukesh, piling on the pressure, didn't give Black a chance to recover. When a super-GM loses before move 30, that can be classified as a crush!
This variation was popularized for Black by GM Pal Benko from the early 1970s, and he wrote a book on it. GM Bobby Fischer played a variation of it in the mid-1960s. The line is known in Russia as the Volga Gambit, with a 1946 article by Argunov, who lived in a River Volga town, about the variation, appearing in a Soviet magazine. But it had been played earlier than that, in some Swedish master games in the 1930s. In reversed form, it is also connected to ideas from Richard Reti, during the rise of the Hypermoderns, in the 1920s.Comment
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I think Ray Keene should be given credit as well from playing and from Flank Openings.Comment
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Ding wins game 12, ties the match with 2 games to go.
From the English chess forum..." it has happened four times just this century, with the player trailing having two Whites left in each case: Kramnik v Leko, Kramnik v Topalov, Carlsen v Karjakin, Ding v Nepo. Not such a bad record then; and whilst Kramnik v Topalov and Ding v Nepo were wild matches where there always seemed to be room for more twists and turns, by contrast Kramnik had not won a game against Leko since the first game (yes...!) and Carlsen had not yet won a game against Karjakin at all.
Nonetheless, in three of these matches the valiant hero did win the next game to equalise with two games left. Only Kramink left it to the very last against Leko."Comment
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I think the fans have what they want - a wide open match with two exciting games left and then, possibly, more exciting games in the playoffs.Comment
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