Singapore: India’s D Gukesh scripted his second win in the 2024 World Chess Championship final against China’s Ding Liren on Sunday in Singapore by securing a triumph with white pieces. The victory helped Gukesh take the lead for the first time in the ongoing World Chess Championship final. Gukesh now needs to draw the remaining three rounds to become the youngest chess world champion. Gukesh is now leading 6-5 in the contest. Interestingly, no challenger in modern chess has taken the lead after scores were tied at 5-5 after the 10th game.
Gukesh’s win was sealed after Defending Champion Ding made a blunder in his 28th move, dragging his queen to C8. The move handed the game to his rival and Gukesh capitalised on the opportunity. The Chinese grandmaster then resigned immediately.
The 11th round commenced with the duo playing a Reti opening system. The Indian started off by moving his knight while the Chinese Grandmaster went for a reverse Benoni opening. While many thought that the opening had gone wrong for the Chinese, he capitalised on the mistakes made by Gukesh in the middle game. In the latter stages, Gukesh came up with an impressive move that involved a pawn sacrifice on the queen side to give moving space for his rooks. He doubled them up to exert pressure on his opponent and the Ding crashed under pressure as a result.
Both the players took a long period of time to decide their moves at one point. It took 40 minutes for Ding to finalise move five while Gukesh spent more than one hour for his 11th move. But, Ding fumbled eventually and it handed his opponent an advantage.
