De Gukesh vs Ding Liren: How the World Chess Championship shapes up after 3 rounds

Nerves are no longer a worry for teenage Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh but he will have a psychological edge against slightly weakened defending champion Ding Liren when the two resume their riveting battle for the World Championship crown in the fourth round here on Friday. Will keep. After demonstrating better preparation and claiming his first win in the third round, 18-year-old Gukesh is excited with anticipation and would like to rest on the first leg today. With a maximum of 11 games remaining under classical time control, the scores are tied at 1.5–1.5. This happened after Liren won the first game and the second game ended in a draw.

Gukesh has clearly shown better preparation, while Liren's calculations let him down in the third game. The match began with Gukesh facing the Chinese in the French Defense game with the white pieces and his early progress gave the Indian a huge time advantage, which he maintained till the end.

“It's always good to win a game, even for the first time against such a strong opponent. I think it means that I won the World Championship and that's very important,” a visibly happy Gukesh said after Wednesday's game. It's a victory.” ,

The youngster lost the opener by playing poorly in a complex middle game, but he can take heart from the fact that his preparation was good.

In the second game, which was his first white game, Liren picked a solid variation on the Italian opening and Gukesh had no trouble equalizing with ease from the opening.

The game ended with repetitions in only 23 moves, earning Gukesh much respect for his flawless play with little adverse colour.

Coming into the third game before the first rest day, Gukesh decided to put in all his energy and his early choices once again forced Liren to spend more than half of the allotted time in the first 14 moves.

The Chinese missed an easy draw late on their 18th turn but this was largely due to the early pressure exerted by the Indians.

With the scores level, it is unlikely that Liren will pull out all the stops in the next game. Instead, a more cautious approach is expected to be taken, as the Chinese champions will hope to maintain their skills in crucial moments and avoid a repeat of past mistakes.

Gukesh will be keen to ride the wave of his success for as long as possible. Their first win in the match would have greatly boosted the confidence of the Chennai players.

If he continues to surprise, especially with the white pieces, he will be rewarded in the coming games.

In the last World Championships match he won, Liren trailed three times but came back to level the score against Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi.

In fact, he only advanced to the final day when the tiebreaker decided the fate of the title.

It would certainly be unwise to dismiss Liren given his fighting qualities, but it remains to be seen how he handles things against someone who is 14 years younger and obviously very hungry for success .

“…the outcome of the game will probably affect my emotions for the rest of the day,” the 32-year-old said candidly after Wednesday's defeat. And it remains to be seen how he handles himself.

Overall, the match looks interestingly poised after Gukesh's win and chess enthusiasts could not have expected more from the first three games.