Dhe battle for the crown in the Game of Kings goes into overtime. After a draw in the 14th and final game of the World Chess Championship in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana, the Russian Jan Nepomnyashchi and the Chinese Ding Liren are 7-7. Nepomnyashchi won the second, fifth and seventh game, Ding Liren equalized in the fourth, sixth and twelfth game.
The title will be decided on Sunday in a tie-break in rapid chess with greater time pressure. The winner of the duel will succeed the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, who lost motivation after ten years on the chess throne and decided not to defend his title.
The game starts on Sunday (from 11:00 a.m.) in a play-off over four rapid chess games with 25 minutes’ time plus ten seconds per move. If there is still no winner after that, further blitz chess games are on the program. The time pressure in each duel continues to increase.
The last game with classic time control ended on Saturday after 90 moves and a hard fight in a draw. Nepomnjaschtschi was able to win an extra pawn with Black, but ultimately failed to convert it in the rook endgame.
Nimzowitsch-Indian Defence
Ding initially remained true to himself and opened the duel again with the pawn move on d4, “Nepo” also didn’t risk anything and again went into the Nimzowitsch-Indian Defence. With his twelfth move, a knight move, Ding put pressure on his opponent. He raised it on move number 14 when he advanced his pawn to h4. But Nepomnyashchi created a counterattack. Ding had to think for a long time again, was the first player to have less than an hour left and had to focus more and more on the clock.
In the further course, Nepomnjaschtschi was able to gain a slight advantage shortly before the end of the first 40 moves, but gave it up again and reacted angrily with himself. the draw after almost seven hours was the logical consequence.
