Tactical Tussle: Ding and Gukesh play out draw in Game 4 of World Chess Championship

One of the biggest challenges for players in the World Chess Championship is how to surprise your opponent when both have prepared thousands of openings, defences, and have studied millions of chess games.

In the fourth game, defending champion Ding Liren tried to surprise his young challenger, Gukesh Dommuruaju, with an opening novelty however, the 18-year-old Indian grandmaster was well-prepared and defended cautiously, ultimately leading to a draw after 42 moves.

Gukesh clearly seemed better prepared than the world champion in the first three games, despite losing the first one. Ding has been seen struggling on the board, trying to find the best continuation in all the games. Playing with white, he unleashed the Zukertort Opening with Nf3 followed by e3. This system is known for its slow but solid way for white to destroy the black pieces using fianchetto bishops on the long diagonals (a1-h8 and h1-a8). It is named after a British-Polish grandmaster.

Gukesh responded cautiously, taking his time to think through each move. Ding then introduced a surprise element by posting his dark-coloured bishop on a3 instead of the usual b2 fianchetto, threatening Gukesh’s castling chances.

The look on Ding Liren’s face was akin to asking his better-prepared opponent if he had the mettle to figure out the novelty on the board. Gukesh did, and by careful manoeuvring of his knights, he defended all tactics before both players agreed to a draw after 42 moves with repetition of moves.

Woman Grandmaster Susan Polgar remarked on a live show of the game about Ding’s strategy: “Ding’s game strategy is simple. He wants to take Gukesh off his excellent home preparation. This forces Gukesh to spend a lot of time on the board to come up with the right ideas, moves, and plans. Ding believes that Gukesh is more vulnerable when he is out of preparation and low on time.”

Ding Liren confessed about the surprise weapon in his post-match conference. “Yesterday I had a rest day to recover from the tough loss, and today I was in a very good mood. I tried to surprise my opponent, and it worked well, but the advantage was very small.”

Gukesh was happy with a draw with black but did not let his opponent score any psychological points. He said, “The game was a very good result. It wasn’t a completely new line for me, although it was a bit of a surprise. I was playing over the board from early on. I think I reacted well enough, neutralising his edge.”

The fifth game of the match is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 30, at 5 pm local time in Singapore. Gukesh will play with white, which will be a big challenge for the defending champion. Gukesh won the third game with white after drawing the previous one with black pieces.