Gukesh Dommaraju levels World Chess Championship as Ding Liren loses on time in Game 3

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju has scored his first win in his world title match with China’s Ding Liren after the reigning champion shockingly lost on time in the third game of their $2. 5m showdown in Singapore. Ding’s mismanagement of the clock left him with 10 seconds to make five moves to reach the first time control from a losing position. He was unable to reach his 40th move, which would have given him an additional 30 minutes, before the flag went up. The 32-year-old from Zhejiang province, playing with the black pieces, reacted well despite spending a lot of time grappling with an opening surprise from Gukesh, a lesser-known variation of the Queen’s Gambit. But Ding made a significant error with 18... Rh5?! and the time pressure only mounted from there. It was thought to be the first time that a player officially lost on time in a world championship game since Game 1 of the 1993 meeting between Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short. “It feels great, ” Gukesh said afterward. “The last two days I was happy with my play, but today was even better. I feel good at the board. Today I just managed to outplay him in the opening, which is always very nice. ” It marked Gukesh’s first win over Ding in six all-time classical meetings. Ding had owned a 4-1 edge in their head-to-head entering Wednesday’s encounter with three wins and two draws, all since January 2023. Ding came into the first defense of his world championship having gone 28 classical games without a win, a wretched run of form that saw him drop to 23rd in the world rankings and prompted the oddsmakers to install him as roughly a 3-1 longshot in the match. But he sprang a major surprise in Monday’s first gameby winning as black, dramatically ending the 304-day winless streak. Game 2 on Tuesdaywas a tame 23-move draw. An 18-year-old native of Chennai, the fifth-ranked Gukesh can shatter the record for youngest ever undisputed world champion held by Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Anatoly Karpov in their 1985 rematch in Moscow. “It’s always nice to win a game, also for the first [time] against such a strong opponent, ” Gukesh said. “I think it means more that I got a win in the world championship, and a very important win. I am happy with many things about this. ” Both players will look forward to Thursday’s rest day before the competition resumes on Friday with Ding playing as white in Game 4. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared the champion in the world title match at Resorts World Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s southern coast.