Ding Liren got a dream position with the black pieces after the opening of Game 13, but one puzzling move and one real inaccuracy allowed Ian Nepomniachtchi right back into the game. In fact it was Ian who had the chances after Ding sacrificed the exchange, but in the end the game ended in a relatively quick draw by repetition. The scores are level going into Saturday's final classical game, when Ding has the white pieces.
Game 13 was a huge battle of nerves | photo: Anna Shtourman, FIDE
Replay the live commentary on Game 13 of the FIDE World Championship match in Astana from Fabiano Caruana, Tania Sachdev and Robert Hess (or check out the game with computer analysis).
Both previous times that Ding Liren had scored a win in the match he lost the very next game, but this time he held a draw to keep the scores level going into the final classical game. As the player with the white pieces, he now has an edge for the first time in the match.
It might have been more, however, since Ian Nepomniachtchi was still reeling from the dream-shattering loss in Game 12, just when he’d seemed on the verge of wrapping up victory in the match. He was asked how he’d been able to come back and play in Game 13.
It wasn’t the sweetest moment yesterday. Today I just came and tried to play chess, which obviously was not too brilliant… but I tried!
Ian did change one thing.
On the chessboard, however, it was a familiar story, with neither side in the mood for a quick draw. Ian played the Ruy Lopez, and Ding Liren again played the classical Ruy Lopez with 3…a6, rather than the Berlin, after a 37-second pause. The players headed for the Anti-Marshall, and it was only on move 10 that Ian Nepomniachtchi varied from the 10.a4 that had given him victory in Game 5.
Here Ian went for a quintessentially modern opening idea, 10.Be3, which was nothing special but had the virtue of being playable but completely untested at the highest level. If Team Nepo knew some nuances that Ding Liren would have to work out at the board, it could be a key factor.
All the pieces remaining on the board gave the potential for excitement, with Ukrainian Grandmaster Pavel Eljanov wondering if that was a good idea for Ian.
Ian played fast, as you would expect after playing the first rare move, but then sank into thought before playing 14.d4!?
The verdict all round afterwards was that he should have played 14.axb5! axb5 and only then pushed the d-pawn.
After 14…exd4 15.cxd4 cxd4 16.Nxd4 Nc4! Ian might have muttered to himself, “not again!”
The knight is suddenly hitting the b2-pawn, the e3-bishop and the d2-knight, one of the defenders of the shaky e4-pawn.
Ian decided drastic measures were necessary and eliminated the knight with 17.Nxc4!?, but after 17… bxc4 18.f3!? Bf8 19.Bf2!? Ding Liren all but blitzed out 19…d5!
Ding commented afterwards:
This d5-break I’m very happy to play, because it’s like some kind of Sicilian Defence, and if Black can successfully play d5 then he has no problem at all. You can also hope for some advantage after that.
Soon we got to perhaps the critical position of the game, after Ian played 21.Be4.
Ding Liren said his first instinct here was to defend the bishop, and target the b2-pawn, with 21…Rb8!, which gets the computer’s stamp of approval. If he’d made the move fast you wonder if Ian would have crumbled under the rising pressure.
It's gone from winter to summer in Astana, and the players may feel they've been playing this match for months! | photo: Anna Shtourman, FIDE
The reason Ding didn’t go for it, however, was that he felt it was “not so easy to prove a clear advantage” after 21…Rb8 22.Bxd5 Bxd5 23.Qd2.
He was also tempted by the surprising 21...Nf4!?, when after 22.Bxb7 it turns out 22…Qg5 or 22…Rb8 first gives Black full compensation for the piece, but probably no more. Ding’s reason for rejecting that was altogether more poetic — if it wasn’t based on a bet with his second Richard Rapport!
At this point, Fabiano Caruana was busy explaining to viewers that he felt the match was following a movie plot.
I think that this match is following the plot of a classic movie, and the movie is Final Destination. In Game 8, Ian was in a life-or-death situation, and somehow, by a miracle, he survived. Then there were a few quiet games where everything was going well, and then he thought that everything was continuing to go well, but out of the blue, Death came for him in that game yesterday. And now he has to find a way to stop Death, which is continuing to come for him, and it’s going to be very difficult from this position. I really feel like I’m seeing some correlation between that movie and this match, and who knows, if he manages to stop it, then in the last game he’ll be in pretty good shape to get to the playoff, but this is the most dangerous moment in the match for Ian.
After 25 minutes, however, Ding Liren came up with a move that surprised everybody, 21…Re5!?
Ding later noted the oddity that the centre of the board was completely occupied by pieces, not pawns, and he explained his motivation for the move.
I wanted to play for the maximum by 21…Re5, to try and protect the pawn and knight with a rook, but it also has some drawbacks.
Nepomniachtchi called the rook move “artificial” and instead suggested that “something like 21…Qc7, 22…Rad8 would work like a charm for Black”.
Ian’s spirits were clearly lifted again, though his quickly-played 22.Rc1 Rc8 23.Ne2?! might have run into trouble if Ding had found the precise 23…Qe8!. Instead 23…Qe7?!, defending the e5-rook and the b7-bishop, ran into a refutation, 24.Qd4!
Ding confessed to missing that “very powerful move”. In the centre of the board the queen hits the e5-rook and the c4-pawn, greatly restricting Black’s options, while preparing the d1-square for a rook.
If the queen was on e8 then Bc5, ousting the queen, would be one of the options, and the computer even suggests the “correction” 23…Qe8 as the best move in the position. Instead Ding pressed on with one of the points of his Re5 move, 24…f5!?, but without the threat of Bc5, trapping the queen, Nepomniachtchi was able to reply 25.Bg3, when Ding had a choice of how to sacrifice the exchange. He went for 25…Rxe4!?
After 26.fxe4 Qxe4 27.Qxe4 fxe4 the complex middlegame had come down to an endgame where Ding had a bishop and a pawn for a rook.
It was just the latest twist in the match, but as Fabiano Caruana pointed out, things were not so bad if Ding could forget about what had gone before.
The only reason that it's not a success for Ding is because he had a good position, so he shouldn't be trying to fight for a draw in this game.
Nepomniachtchi could briefly dream of immediately bouncing back from a loss against Ding for a 3rd time in a row | photo: Anna Shtourman
Ian felt the same, saying of his advantage, “I’m not sure if it was a lot”, and pointed out that just as he’d been able to survive “move-by-move” in the middlegame, now everything was working out tactically for Ding. The positionally desirable 33…Nd3! came just in time.
Instead retreating the attacked d5-bishop would have ended in disaster, e.g. after 33…Bb7 34.Nxe4! Bxe4 35.Rxc4, with all three black minor pieces attacked.
Nepomniachtchi may have missed a chance to exchange off that monster knight with 36.Ne2! and 37.Nf4, but by this stage it seems both players were happy to end hostilities. Instead he chose 36.Re2, which turned out to be the final key position of the game.
Ding went for 36…Nc1 and after 37.Re1 Nd3 38.Re2 the players repeated moves for a draw. Ian commented:
I didn’t see why I’m better. My rook is passive, and the problem is that he always has the counterplay against the b-pawn, so he’s not obliged to protect on e4.
Ian also spotted an amusing line, 37.Nxe4, giving back the exchange and hoping to get a microscopically better position, but then he noticed 37…Bg1+!
The forced 40.Kxg1 Nxe2+ 41.Kf2 Bxe4 42.Kxe2 is an absolutely dead-drawn opposite-coloured bishops endgame.
Ding Liren, meanwhile, said he considered 36…Ke6, “to play for a win”, but he correctly saw that 36.Nxe4 Bxe4 37.Rxe4+ Kd5 38.Re8 Nxb2 39.Rd8+ is only another absolutely logical draw.
The black king has to stop White playing Be5, hitting the knight and g7-pawn, so 39…Ke4, but then after 40.Re8+ the king has only one choice, to return with 40…Kd5, and the position repeats again for a draw.
The World Championship match remains tied going into the final classical game.
The penultimate recaps followed, with MrDodgy getting his moment in the sun. What could possibly go wrong?
Ding Liren looked confident in the press conference, and gave a surprising answer when asked about his win the day before.
I didn’t have too strong emotions after yesterday’s win. It’s normal, it’s average level. I saw Ian looked very, very upset when he missed Rxe6, but at that point I just tried to focus on the position and not be influenced by him… The emotion might occur later, not immediately after the game.
Ding Liren is unrecognisable from the nervous player who feared there was something wrong with his mind in the first game | photo: Anna Shtourman, FIDE
On paper he now has the advantage for the first time in the match, since he’ll have the white pieces in the final classical game, though he noted that could be a double-edged sword.
It’s supposed to be an advantage, but also a disadvantage. I remember the Topalov-Anand match, where Topalov had the white pieces in the last game, but he disappointed and so I have a rest day to see what to play for the last, or maybe not the last, game.
Both players are potentially just one game away from becoming the 17th World Chess Champion | photo: Stev Bonhage, FIDE
Ding already lost in the match with White in Game 2, and then very nearly again in Game 12. For Ian, meanwhile, the rest day will be another chance to get over the trauma of that Game 12. The stakes on Saturday will be incredibly high, though some are already preparing for tiebreaks on Sunday!
Don’t miss all the action from 15:00 local time (5am ET, 11:00 CEST, 2:30pm IST)!
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