Chess world championship: Gukesh plays out easy draw with black

Indian challenger D Gukesh yet again proved equal to the task with defending champion Ding Liren of China as the 10th game of the World Chess Championship match between them ended in a draw without much excitement here on Saturday.

It was by far the easiest of the game with black pieces for Gukesh as the position played itself out of a London system game wherein Ding took no risks and was also apparently happy with the drawn result.

The seventh consecutive draw — and eighth of the match — left both players on an identical tally of 5 points each, still shy of 2.5 points in order to win the championship.

The two players signed peace after 36 moves. Just four more classical games are left to be played in the $2.5 million prize money championship and if a tied result happens after 14 rounds, there will be games under faster time control to determine the winner.

The 32-year-old Ding had won the opening game while the 18-year-old Gukesh had emerged victorious in the third game.

Liren continued with his London system in the opening and came with a slight change early that left the pawn structure symmetrical. The tactic might have worked on another day but Gukesh for once decided not to press hard as black out of an equal position.

Gukesh, the youngest ever challenger, had his task cut out and he passed all the tests with flying colours. “With black to get a solid draw like this is always a good result. There are four more exciting games to go,” Gukesh said. “It’s obviously getting closer and closer but the thing is to play good games.”

Ding said, “There’s not much room to make mistakes, every loss will result in very bad situation. We need to be careful with every move.”