Singapore. India’s D Gukesh, the youngest challenger for the world title, played his fourth consecutive draw with defending champion Ding Liren of China in the seventh game of the World Chess Championship here on Tuesday, despite being in a better position. After the match that lasted five hours and 22 minutes, both the players have equal 3.5 points and are still four points away from winning the championship. The player who first scores 7.5 points in a match of 14 games will become the champion. Both players agreed to draw the game after 72 moves. This is the fifth draw of this match.
Tuesday proved to be a difficult day for Liren and he was in danger of defeat until Gukesh made a mistake. The Indian player playing with white pieces was in a very strong position but after this he made a wrong guess and gave the Chinese player a chance to make a draw by making a comeback in the longest game of the match so far. Gukesh once again made a good start in the match and soon put Liren under pressure.
Mistakes were seen from both the players in the middle game and it seemed that Liren would achieve equality. However, during this time Liren once again lost most of the time as players have to make the initial 40 moves in two hours without any increase.
Like many times in the past, Liren again made a mistake on the 40th move and lost his pawn. Gukesh also made a mistake in the 45th move and Liren got a chance to make a comeback. Gukesh was in a good position after the first ‘time control’ but after losing all the pawns he had to give points as he was left with only one bishop (camel). 32 year old Liren of China won the first game while 18 year old Gukesh won the third game. The second, fourth, fifth and sixth games between the two players were also draws.