Ding Liren eased to an impressive win in game 1 of the 2024 FIDE chess World Championship on Monday against D Gukesh. The defending champion saw off a fast and furious start from his young challenger, reversed the pressure by staying calm and starting with employing the French defence, he eventually won rather comprehensively.
Ding now leads the 14-game match 1-0.
This is the first time in 14 years that a win has been registered in game 1 (that was Viswanathan Anand vs Veselin Topalov)
At one point at the start, Ding was trailing Gukesh by an hour but as the game wore on, Ding made a few quick counterattacking moves, leading with his queen and that threw Gukesh off his game. Threating the diagonal with queen a5, Ding piled the pressure on Gukesh's opening.
With half an hour left on the first time control (40 moves have to be completed in two hours minutes), Gukesh went defensive with a castle as he grew wary of Ding's threat on the Queen side. With another defensive move, rook to d3, Ding marched forward with his queen and continued to hammer home the advantage. With time pressure piling up, Gukesh was forced to go into blitz mode towards the end. His 40th move was made with one second left on the clock, but in making the time control, he had to make a few quick moves that put him in a compromised position.
Ding took his time to turn on the screws, before taking his first break from the board, walking away and staying away for a few minutes before re-entering and finishing the match in one move. As Gukesh offered his hand for the defeat, Ding finally broke into the briefest of smiles.
Game 2 will be same tomorrow, and we'll be here to cover it live. You can relive the first game's proceedings live right here:
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