World Chess Championship: Game 2 of Ding-Gukesh battle ends in 'quiet Italian' draw
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D Gukesh could not emulate his mentor Viswanathan Anand and bounce back with a win after losing the first game of the World Chess Championship against the reigning champion Ding Liren.
Game 2 of the Ding-Gukesh showdown ended in a draw on Tuesday, with the overall score reading 1.5 to 0.5 in favour of the Chinese GM.
Anand had famously won Game 2 of his 2010 World Chess Championship match against Bulgarian challenger Veselin Topalov. Just like Ding in Singapore, Bulgarian challenger Topalov had won the first game of the championship in Sofia.
Part of the reason why Gukesh couldn't do an Anand in his Game 2 is because of Ding's smart opening choice. Playing white, Ding chose to start with 'e4' (moving the pawn in front of the King two squares up). With Gukesh responding with the conventional 'e5', the game went along familiar lines. The sequence of moves that followed: 1).. e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Bc4 Bc5 is popularly referred to as the 'Giuoco Piano' or the 'Italian Game'.
The term 'Giuoco Piano' roughly translates to 'quiet game', which it turned out to be in the end as both players were unwilling to take risks. After 20 moves, Ding and Gukesh decided to go for a draw with a threefold repetition by making repetitive knight moves (a game is decided a draw if the same position occurs three times).
During the game, Vishy Anand, who joined FIDE commentators GM David Howell and IM Jovanka Houska, could not see Gukesh having a clear advantage after about 15 moves on the board. "Ding won the opening battle," Anand said.
The five-time world champion quickly pointed out that Gukesh could not afford to commit mistakes because of Ding's passive yet calculated approach. "Black (Gukesh) has to be exact, and white can afford not to be," Anand said just after the halfway point in the game.
Game 3 of the match will be played on Wednesday, with Gukesh having white. The 18-year-old Indian will be hoping to get his first win and draw the tie before heading into the first rest day of the championship.