Ian Nepomniachtchi suffered a devastating loss to Ding Liren within the twelfth sport
of the World Chess Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan. Not solely did
that imply that the match was tied at 6-6 with two video games to go however it additionally
represented an enormous emotional blow, earlier it appeared that he was really going
to win the sport and just about guarantee being the brand new World Champion.
Nepomniachtchi seemed very distressed in the course of the 16 minutes of thought
at transfer 35 as he tried to seek out any transfer to proceed his utterly wrecked
place.

Ding returned to 1.d4, Nepomniachtchi supplied the Queen’s Gambit, Ding selected
the Colle system, and nearly instantly Nepomniachtchi took the sport
into contemporary pastures. 5…Qc7 was uncommon, 6…Bd7 was new and eight….Bg4 seemed
like giving him a minimum of equality. Ding was pleased together with his place however
this appears overoptimistic.

Ding Liren: “I believed that my place was higher from the opening. However after my opponent performed a collection of excellent strikes, I felt like tables circled, and I used to be near dropping, so I attempted to complicate the waters with some ways.”

Ding broken black’s pawn construction spherical his king with 12.Bxf6 and
then performed the double edged 17.g4. The issue was black had a minimum of nearly as good attacking
possibilities in opposition to as he had. White began to get into bother with 19.Bc2? (19.Rg1 was
about equal) and after 19…Nh4! it was clear white was struggling. 24.c4 was
already fairly determined from Ding 26…b4 was aggressive from Nepomniachtchi, 26…a6
would have saved a lot of his benefit however denied any counter play. Black was successful
right here with finest play however there have been indicators Nepomniachtchi was getting carried away.

Ian Nepomniachtchi: “My place at one second seemed like successful. However even in case you are successful, you need to be exact until the top. And clearly at present I wasn’t exact sufficient.”
“To lose in a supposedly successful place just isn’t the very best factor to do. I made a decision to go for some forcing traces and met the implications. Sooner or later, the sport was an enormous mess.”

27…Rag8? was performed after 27 seconds of thought, 27…Nf3 was significantly better. 28…Bb8 was performed rapidly too (28…Nf5!).
Ding wasn’t resistant to nerves as there have been two significantly better strikes than 29.Qb7 (29.Bxg6 and 29.d5) 29…Rh6 was
second finest (29…Nf5!). After 31.Qxb4 it was clear that white was higher, not but successful although. Then after
3 minutes of thought the wild lunge 34…f5?? got here from Nepomniachtchi and a clearly shocked Ding spent
a minute over 35.Rxe6 and black can resign which he did after simply 4 extra strikes.

Match degree, we’ll need to see what occurs subsequent on this very tense match.

Rating: Nepomniachtchi 6 Ding 6. Better of 14.

Sport 13 Nepomniachtchi-Ding on Thursday 10am BST.