The fourth round of the World Chess Championship on the island of Sentosa in Singapore was eagerly awaited. Would the reigning world champion, Ding Liren from China, play on the attack with the white pieces to take the lead again? Or would he take it easy after the terrible defeat in the third round against the 18-year-old challenger Gukesh from India?
The match is evenly balanced going into the fourth round, 1.5 to 1.5, and Ding also looks balanced. He starts the game quite unconventionally by holding back the central pawns and coming over the left wing. This first surprise, which makes Gukesh think early on, is followed by a second one when he does not develop his queen bishop on the usual b2 square, on the large diagonal, but moves it one square further, to the edge to a3. It looks a little like the runner is leaning out the window.
But not too far out the window. The bishop move forces Gukesh to react carefully if he wants to castling. He manages to do this without much effort, although he certainly didn’t expect this opening to the flank. This leaves Ding with only a minimal positional advantage, which becomes smaller and smaller as the game progresses. When there is finally only one queen, one rook and three pawns left on the board, after 3 hours and 20 minutes there is a draw on move 42 by repeating the position three times.
Exciting start, relaxed end. At the press conference after the game, Ding Liren seemed almost relaxed by his standards; He always has a smile on his face. He seems to have coped well with the defeat. Gukesh is eloquent and alert as always. The match, accompanied by the good reception from a very young audience this Friday, remains open.
You can read all of our reporter Ulrich Stock’s reports from the World Chess Championship in Singapore here. Grandmaster Niclas Huschenbeth also provides video analyzes of all games for ZEIT ONLINE.
