Ding Liren vs D Gukesh in the 2024 FIDE World Championship has now entered its second half and it was ushered there by a marathon of a game 7 that Gukesh nearly had in his grasp. Nearly, though, as Aaditya Narayan puts it here is never going to win you a World Championship and to do that the young Indian challenger needs to shrug off the vast disappointment of having missed out on a golden opportunity to make the current 3.5 – 3.5 score one more to his advantage. A blunder on move 46 of game 7 saw Gukesh go from a commanding, extremely winnable position to dead-even on all the engine evaluations and that’s what cost him in the end.
The business end of the Championship begins today with game 8 – which begins, as all the others have, at 2.30 PM IST (5.00 PM in Singapore) – and with Ding Liren playing with white. Previously, with white, the reigning champ’s shown little inclination to take risks or force the issue, happy to wait and see if Gukesh makes a mistake. He’s not made many, though, and Ding’s not shown the willingness to go poking. Perhaps this is when we will see that change? Gukesh, though, will be heartened by how game 7 started (and progressed for large parts of it). He’s got a line on Ding’s preparations, is shocking him with some moves and has shown himself and Ding that he can put the latter on the ropes: will game 8 be when he shows that he can take it to the next level and put him on the mat?
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