Courtesy: FIDE
On Friday, November 29, in the Game 4 of the World Chess Championship 2024 match, Indian GM Dommaraju Gukesh, the challenger, managed to thwart the surprise opening from world champion GM Ding Liren from China, to secure a drab draw with the black pieces. With this result in Game 4 in Singapore, both Dommaraju Gukesh and Ding Liren are level on two points in the World Chess Championship 2024 match, which is expected to throw a lot of twists and turns in the next couple of weeks.
The number one to Ding Liren in his preparation for the World Chess Championship 2024 match, GM Richard Rapport from France, has been widely credited for the offbeat opening of 1.Nf3 from the world champion in the Game 4 of his title defence. It led to Gukesh Dommaraju finding a way to calmly neutralise the position with his active play on the board as the pieces were exchanged before the game ended with a threefold repetition on move 42.
Towards the end, I had some chances to press: Dommaraju Gukesh
Following the conclusion of the Game 4 of the World Chess Championship 2024 match, Dommaraju Gukesh spoke about how he had chances to press forward, but the result was satisfactory since it kept the title fight nicely poised going into the next couple of weeks. He was quoted as saying, as per the New Indian Express, “Towards the end, I had some chances to press better but with black this is all you can expect.”
Meanwhile, world champion Ding Liren spoke about recovering from a tough loss in the previous game during the one-day break before playing the surprise opening in the Game 4. He remarked, “This round, I tried to play safe. It turns out I got a little bit of an advantage. The score is still balanced. There are more games to come. I had a rest day to recover from the tough loss. I am in a very good mood. It worked well, not so bad.”
