After seven consecutive draws, Indian prodigy D. Gukesh achieved a pivotal breakthrough in Game 11 of the FIDE World Chess Championship, forcing reigning champion Ding Liren to resign. The intense match unfolded in Singapore on Sunday, marking the 18-year-old challenger’s first lead in the series with three games remaining.
The game was a spectacle of nerve-wracking time pressure and sharp tactics. Both players found themselves in a time scramble, with Ding Liren having just over eight minutes to complete 16 moves, while Gukesh faced the clock with 15 minutes for 15 moves.
“At some point, it was a blitz game,” Gukesh reflected during the post-match press conference. “I was happy when I saw him think so long. I was happy to get that time advantage. I don’t know what I was thinking for an hour. I was thinking about so many variations.”
The turning point came on the 28th move when Ding, under immense time pressure, shifted his queen to c8 in what he immediately recognized as a critical blunder. Gukesh capitalized by offering his own queen as a sacrifice, leaving no room for recovery. Realizing the inevitable, Ding resigned on the spot.
The early stages of the game set the stage for the dramatic finish. Ding, caught off guard by Gukesh’s choice of the Reti Opening, struggled to adapt. The world champion spent over 38 minutes on his fourth move and an additional 22 minutes on his second, burning through his initial time allocation alarmingly fast.
“Forty minutes just went nowhere, to calculate some nonsense variations,” Ding admitted post-match, lamenting his costly time management.
Despite building a substantial time advantage early on, Gukesh himself found the clock challenging, spending an hour deliberating his 11th move. This decision temporarily eroded the cushion he had painstakingly built, but he remained resolute and capitalized on Ding’s eventual error.
The victory signals a turning point in the championship, with Gukesh now holding a crucial lead. As the youngest player to ever challenge for the world title, Gukesh continues to defy expectations with his composed and strategic play against the reigning champion.
With three games left in the series, all eyes are on the Indian teenager to see if he can maintain his momentum and claim the ultimate prize in chess.