World Chess Championship: Chinese Ding Liren equalizes by playing "Russian style"

Observers were worried after the first three games of the 2023 World Chess Championship. The Chinese Ding Liren renowned for his aggressive style was only a shadow of himself. Taken by a kind of stage fright linked to the importance of "parasitic thoughts", according to the own admission of the grand master of Wenzhou, he proved incapable of calculating the slightest variant. But by equalizing the score (2-2) on April 12 with the white pieces in the 4th game, Ding showed that the dice are not yet cast in this confrontation which is held in Astana in Kazahstan in the best of 14 classic games ( 40 moves in 2 hours per player).

The most reassuring and also the most surprising lies in the way in which Ding Liren imposed himself. Usually dreaded by his tactical fantasy and his great computing power, he has shown here a terrible positional strength, once the prerogative of the Russian school. After having sacrificed a pawn to obtain a center of pawns worthy of a Greek phalanx, the world No. 3 sacrificed quality to literally tie up “Nepo”. (see Part 4 quick commentary below)

Ding Liren – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Astana 2023, Part 4, Early English1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e5 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e3 Bb4 5.Qc2 Bxc3 6.bxc3 d6 7.e4 0–0 8.Be2 Nh5 9.d4 Nf4 10.Bxf4 exf4 11.0–0 Qf6 12.Rfe1 Re8 13.Bd3 Bg4 14.Nd2 Na5 15.c5!, an excellent positional pawn sacrifice that allows Ding to control the center...

15...dxc5 16.e5 Qh6 17.d5 Tad8 18.c4 b6 19.h3 Bh5 20.Be4 Re7 21.Qc3 Rde8 22.Bf3 Nb7 23.Re2 f6 24.e6 Nd6 25.Rae1 Nf5?. A faulty knight move and above all played with a bad idea: go to d4. Nepo had to wait and suffer, certainly, playing 25...Bg6 26.Be4 Bh5 etc... 26.Bxh5 Qxh5 27.Re4 Qh6 28.Qf3 Nd4 29.Rxd4!! Great art. After this sacrifice of quality worthy of the great Tigran Petrossian, Ding Liren dominate the whole chessboard. See diagram below.

29...cxd4 30.Nb3 g5 31.Nxd4 Qg6 32.g4 fxg3 33.fxg3 h5 34.Nf5 Th7 35.De4 Rh8 36.e7 Qf7 37.d6 cxd6 38.Cxd6 Dg8 39.Cxe8 Dxe8 40.De6 Rg7 41 .Tf1 Th6 42.Td1 f5 43.De5 Rf7 44.Dxf5 Tf6 45.Dh7 Re6 46.Dg7 Tg6 47.Df8 1-0 si Tg8 48.Td8!, le pion e7 va bientôt se transformer en dame.

For ten years, the world crown has been monopolized by the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who crushed Nepomniachtchi in December 2021 but who decided in July 2022 to give up defending his title. Ian Nepomniachtchi, 32, and Ding Liren, 30, hold the world's top ranks behind Carlsen, and qualified by finishing in the top two places in the Candidates tournament a year ago, featuring eight of the best players in the world.

The Chinese grandmaster is the first representative of his country to participate in a world championship. This victory relaunched him after a start to the match that must be described as catastrophic. There are now ten games left for the two champions to decide. In the event of a tie, tie-breaks of fast and ultra-fast games will serve as extra time and penalties. Ding Liren must therefore try to dominate in classic rhythm because Nepo, the specialists know it, is an ace of the blitz.

Le Figaro Live will follow and comment live on the 7th part of the 2023 world championship on Tuesday April 18 from 1 p.m. In the meantime you can follow the games live on the FIDE World Championship Astana 2023 website.