Engine Analysis of Games 7-9 from the World Championship

Missed chances for both sides

The last 3 games were again all drawn but they certainly weren’t boring. Both players had big chances to win a game but neither player managed to convert their advantage. So the tension continues to build and it feels like either player could win the next game.

As always, I highly recommend checking out the great annotations provided by Lichess.

Game 7

The seventh game was already very exciting. Gukesh sacrificed a pawn in the opening and his risk payed off.

Whit 7.Re1 Gukesh gave up his c4-pawn, a decision that wasn’t objectively the best but was a great practical choice. Ding declined the pawn, which is very understandable in a practical game, and after that Gukesh had already a pretty high winning probability on move 10.

This slight plus turned into a big advantage for Gukesh but he didn’t play precisely enough and Ding came back into the game. However, Ding made a big mistake on move 40 which gave Gukesh again a big advantage. But Gukesh couldn’t capitalise on it and Ding held the endgame a pawn down.

The piece activity gives additional insight into that game.

Gukesh’s risky opening play left him with more active pieces. He managed to stay more active until the endgame where he was a pawn up. But Ding managed to hold the game in part because his pieces got more active around move 45.

As you can probably imagine from the WDL graph, the game was quite sharp early on.

The game got sharp in the opening as Gukesh sacrificed the pawn. The sharpness remained high until Gukesh lost a big part of his advantage around move 35.

The clock times give one reason why Ding got into big trouble in the first place.

Ding started to spend a lot of time early on and was down to under 20 minutes at move 20. Then he had to blitz out most of his moves and his position got really bad. Gukesh on the other hand had a big time advantage until the time control at move 40.

Game 8

After Ding’s narrow escape, game 8 was even more dramatic.

In this game, Ding played more ambitiously with 13.f4 and the players got a very non-standard position. Ding went wrong in the middle game and Gukesh again got a big advantage. But the tables soon turned and Ding was winning at move 30.

However, Ding was low on time and he started to play more cautiously. He was still much better at the time control at move 40 where he offered a repetition. Gukesh declined but the game soon ended in a draw.

The piece activity was pretty even throughout the game.

Between moves 20 and 30 Gukesh was much more active and again this was also the time where he had an objectively good position.

The sharpness for this game was all over the place.

The game was pretty sharp until the time control but mainly due to the fact that Gukesh made a mistake on move 28 which gave Ding a better position.

The clock was again a big problem for Ding.

From move 23 onwards, Ding’s clock time stayed roughly flat, meaning that he blitzed out his moves. He didn’t have much choice because he was so low on time. If he had more time, he might have been able to convert his advantage.

Game 9

After two very exciting games, the players were more solid in game 9.

No player had any real winning chances in the game, but Gukesh was a bit better after Ding exchanged on f3. However, his advantage soon faded away and the game was a draw.

The piece activity for this game is interesting because it seems like there was much more going on than in the WDL graph.

Gukesh’s pieces got really active between moves 20 and 25 but this didn’t translate into any advantage. A reason for this could be that Ding got more passive to force exchanges on move 25 and hence White’s activity was only an illusion.

The sharpness was like one would expect of a game like this: it decreased from the opening and was near 0 at move 25.

The clock times show again a familiar pattern.

Ding spent huge chunks of time early on, but then started to speed up a lot. This is more logical in a game like this because the position got simplified a lot after move 25. Still it seems like Ding should speed up in the early parts of the games.

Conclusion

In contrast to the previous 3 games, Gukesh also got good winning chances, but didn’t manage to use them. Ding seemed to be a bit more ambitious but Gukesh still pushed a lot more for a win. Also Ding’s worrying time management continued and it’ll be interesting to see if this will hurt him in future games.

Let me know what you think of the match so far.