Singapore, 1 Dec

Indian challenger D Gukesh held defending champion Ding Liren of China to a draw with black pieces in an intense sixth game of the World Chess Championship to remain level on points here Sunday.

The third draw in a row left both players on an identical tally of 3 points apiece, still shy of 4.5 more points in order to win the championship.

The two players signed peace after 46 moves. It was the fourth draw of the match.

It remains to be seen what strategy the players would opt for as the match moves towards the half-way mark.

The 32-year-old Liren had won the opening game while the 18-year-old Gukesh had emerged victorious in the third game.

The second, fourth and fifth games had ended in draws.

With eight games still remaining in the 14-round match, the battle will resume after the second rest day on Monday. If the scores are tied after the eight games, there is an extra day for tie-break games of shorter duration to decide the next world champion.

Gukesh later said he did not feel any real danger during the sixth game.

“I knew this position till Rb8 (Black’s 16th move) and even though I did not know (the next) I thought maybe I am slightly worse but it should be really hard to convert it with white because you cannot push the queen side pawns easily and I always have play on his king.

"I wasn’t really that worried at any point," Gukesh said in the post-game conference.

Asked about the rationale behind his decision to avoid repetition early, Gukesh said, “May be I am slightly worse, although I was not even sure about it, but with open files I thought I will have counter play.

"I thought since he's going for a repetition I will just play for a few more moves and see, obviously it was not playing for a win or anything."

Liren seemed to be gaining in confidence with each passing game even though he was written-off by most of the top players in the world.

Playing with white pieces, Liren for once solved all his opening problems without much ado as he went for the super-solid London system with his third white in the match and blitzed out the first 20 moves, conceding a mere seven minutes on the clock.

In the process though, all the Knights and Bishops had changed hands, leading to a Queen and Rook endgame with equal pawns.

Liren explained the reason behind his choice of opening.

“In the last world championship match (against Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi), I had played the same opening and won a nice game, I wanted to repeat the opening," he said.

Gukesh used up a little over 50 minutes in the first part of the game, giving Liren a 45- minute lead on the clock for the first time in the match. However, on the 20th move, Gukesh chose a dynamic continuation that required deep calculation as well as superior judgement.

Liren thought for a long time, spending all his extra time, and decided to draw the game vide repetition of moves.

Gukesh, known for his tremendous fighting qualities, repeated the position twice and then much to the surprise of the global audience, spurned down the unconditional draw offer by not going for the three-fold repetition.

The computers gave more than a slight advantage for white following Gukesh’s decision but the nature of the position remained complicated enough for both sides to have counter play.

Liren had to regain his composure as he was expecting Gukesh to repeat and he decided not to be over-aggressive in the heavy-pieces endgame.

Gukesh eventually went for the trade of the Queens when he may have been slightly worse but Liren just took a draw exchanging off a crucial king rook pawn after which the Indian had no other way than to repeat the position .

According to English Grandmaster David Howell, the official commentator, "Ding missed his big opportunity with Queens on the board”.

The Chinese was again pressing with Gukesh’s refusal to draw early but it was indeed a great fight in the sixth game that lasted till move 46.

World Championship toughest event in chess: Gukesh

Asked to compare the world championship with other strong events, Gukesh said, “It’s probably the toughest event in chess, obviously there is more at stake but other than that its just a very interesting and long match against a very strong opponent, and at the end of the day we are still playing chess.

"It has been good so far, I still can improve my play, there are a lot more games, considering I was trailing after the first game I am happy to be here, it is too early," Gukesh remarked when asked if he was satisfied with his play thus far.

When asked who among the past world champions were their inspiration, Liren named (Veselin) Topalov and (Magnus) Carlsen while Gukesh mentioned the names of Viswanathan Anand, (Bobby) Fischer and Carlsen.