Ding Liren resurrects world title defense with dramatic Game 12 win over Gukesh Dommaraju

China’s Ding Liren struck back against Gukesh Dommaraju on Monday in the 12th game of their $2.5m world championship match in Singapore, one day after the feisty Indian teenager appeared to have taken command of a deadlocked best-of-14-games showdown

with a dramatic Game 11 win

The decisive result after 39 moves over nearly four hours signaled a dramatic turnaround for the 32-year-old defending champion from Zhejiang province, who had looked visibly shaken after walking into a one-move blunder that cost him a crucial game less than 24 hours earlier.

Sunday’s game had left Gukesh with one hand on the trophy, while Monday’s defeat left the devastated challenger fighting back tears for nearly a minute at the board before signing his scoresheet for the arbiter and exiting the playing hall.

Ding, playing with the white pieces, opened with the English (1 c4) for the second time in the match before aiming for long-term pressure with g3 and Bg2. He fell behind by more than a half hour on time before making his 10th move, but managed to thwart black’s main idea and find all the right moves that left Gukesh uncomfortable and without counterplay.

Confounded by a state of middlegame

zugzwang

After Ding capitalized on another mistake (22...Bg5?!) with the winning 23 Nf4, the game appeared all but a handshake away according to the supercomputers evaluating the moves. But Ding still needed to find them under mounting time pressure, relying on extraordinary composure and calculation. The champion continued to squeeze until Gukesh finally resigned after 3hr 54min.

Ding entered the first defense of his world championship having gone 28 classical games without a win, a dreadful 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 best-of-14-games match.

Game 2

was a quiet draw

Both players will look forward to Tuesday’s rest day before the match resumes on Wednesday with Gukesh marshaling the white pieces in Game 13.

Ding’s recuperative powers on the world championship stage became well-known

when he won the title last year

The fifth-ranked Gukesh, an 18-year-old native of Chennai, is bidding to shatter the record for youngest ever undisputed world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Anatoly Karpov in their 1985 rematch in Moscow.

Full report to follow.