Credit – Chess.com |The first FIDE World Championship without GM Magnus Carlsen in more than 10 years began with a dramatic game on Sunday in Astana, Kazakhstan. While there is no defending world champion, there is a returning challenger, and GM Ian Nepomniachtchi leveraged his experience, preparation, and the confessed anxiety on his opposing challenger GM Ding Liren‘s part to create serious winning chances and pressure on both the board and the clock.
Nepomniachtchi’s excellent 27th move was close to winning as the invasion on the queenside could not be prevented, but the ensuing moves, including his 31st, let much of the advantage slip away. After some more twists and turns, the trade of queens on move 37 sealed a near-certain draw though the handshake didn’t finalize matters until move 49.
Prior to move one, there was already news breaking in Astana as Chess.com’s reporter on the ground, FM Mike Klein, confirmed that GM Richard Rapport was serving as Ding’s second while GM Nikita Vitiugov was accompanying Nepomniachtchi. Klein also reported that Ding had been uncomfortable in the original hotel and had switched hotels prior to the start of the event.
In the post-game press conference, Ding would admit that even on move one, he was unsure what opening move he was going to play, and he decided at the board to go for 1…e5 and the Ruy Lopez. “I thought of some other moves, but in the end, I decided to play 1…e5.”
“I thought of some other moves, but in the end, I decided to play 1…e5.”
—Ding Liren
Nepo was the one who brought a nice innovation with the white pieces. First, his capture with 6.Bxc6 in the Ruy Lopez took the game into less traveled waters. 7.Re1 introduced a position that had been played in fewer than 100 master games in Chess.com’s database, and Ding has never faced the line before with the black pieces as his opponents had always played 7.d3.
One of those opponents was Carlsen, whom Ding defeated in the 2019 Tata Steel Chess India tournament. The world champion himself acknowledged on Twitter that 7.Re1 was a novel idea to him. His former second, GM Jan Gustafsson, assured him that he had checked it.