Bengaluru: When Ding Liren blundered, resigned and walked away from the board after Game 11, he seemed a broken man. A day later, he was talking about how drinking coffee and going to bed early helped him make a remarkable comeback from the abyss.
Towards the end of Game 12, in a winning position, Ding could have wrapped things up in a straightforward fashion by winning an exchange with 26.Na7! Commentators deconstructed if it was a psychological ploy and were
Bengaluru: When Ding Liren blundered, resigned and walked away from the board after Game 11, he seemed a broken man. A day later, he was talking about how drinking coffee and going to bed early helped him make a remarkable comeback from the abyss.
Towards the end of Game 12, in a winning position, Ding could have wrapped things up in a straightforward fashion by winning an exchange with 26.Na7! Commentators deconstructed if it was a psychological ploy and were curious why the world champion didn’t go for it. “The reason is simple,” Ding smiled. “I missed Na7!”. There was laughter and surprise in the press room.
Over the past fortnight, we’ve got a look at the cross-section of the minds of both players. Gukesh – optimistic, aggressive, ready for a battle – and Ding – pessimistic, thoughtful, and unpredictable.
Their post-game analysis has had Ding walking us through his grim assessment of what were often playable, even advantageous positions while Gukesh seemed comfortably hopeful even in dangerous positions.
When faced with a torrid situation on the board, economy of expression is the thumb rule. Gukesh typically tries to be poker-faced, hands cupping his temple, shutting any scrutiny from his opponent. The cameras on the board give spectators a close view of his eyes flitting over the board, the tension creeping across his face.
With Ding, you can tell from a country mile, even if you don’t follow chess, that he believes he’s in trouble. Or at least that’s the impression he offers. He shakes his head, grimaces, shifts in his chair, lets out nervous coughs and casts a glance at Gukesh every once a while. Peers talk of how even at his peak Ding was always a player who displayed confidence issues, visibly underestimating his position. It sometimes ended up throwing them off, and led them to turn overambitious and lose.
On the night Ding struck back with a win Game 12 to level the match scores, Gukesh said that the “game is not a huge blow to my chances” while Ding surprisingly spoke of having made peace with the worst-case scenario. “If I cannot win today, also I cannot win the last two games, maybe I’ll just lose the title, which I also accept…”
You’d imagine it to be a bit of an odd statement when the battle is reaching its crescendo. With Ding though, nothing seems too odd. He has a likeable personality of a panda bear, and he is okay to talk about the demons in his head, being surprised by his opponent’s opening choice, not being able to recall the lines or calling attention to his new hairdo. But you’d still be wondering which version of him will show up for the next game. Counting Game 12, Ding has now made a comeback four times over two World Championship matches. He went from being the guy timidly trading promising positions for draws to smothering his opponent in Game 12.
Typically, in a World Championship match, you’ll expect a psychological battle of some sort to unfold. Gukesh has on a few occasions stood behind his (imposing) chair, hands tucked in his pocket, pacing or just glaring at the board. It’s what chess players usually do when they’re confident of their position. It can be discomfiting to be the guy sitting at the board, trying to untangle the complications of the position while your opponent is revelling in your misery.
Gukesh has also been the one to turn down three-fold repetition offers and play on, even in positions where he was objectively worse. “The psychological battle is long lost – Ding is already down 20-0,” Anish Giri offered last week. Ding probably never arrived in the battle to begin with.
Former world champion Magnus Carlsen likened Gukesh’s situation to his own, from his 2014 match against Viswanathan Anand. “Gukesh probably felt that this match is over… Ding cannot touch me with the White pieces.” As the match nears its end, and with less time left, Carlsen believes that Ding is a “bit of a favourite”. “We essentially have the same situation we had a few days ago,” he said. “Instead of a deadlock, we had a few insane games…Psychologically it’s hard for both players. While Ding knows he sort of came back from the dead, he still has a lot of work to do. For Gukesh, it must be so frustrating to be in this situation. He’s essentially got one more game…There is a lot more pressure on Gukesh to push in the next couple of games than there is on Ding.”
A lot of what happens next could be down to which Ding shows up.
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