World Chess Championship: Gukesh refuses Ding Liren’s draw offer but Game 6 still ends in stalemate | Chess News

For about 25 minutes in Game 6 on Sunday – which eventually ended in a draw – Ding Liren spent his time on the board with feet dipped in the warm pool of false hope. His queen and his opponent D Gukesh’s queen had spent the last few moves waltzing in the middle of the board, their gaze locked at each other.
Ding’s queen shuffled backwards and forwards on d5 and d6 squares, batting its eyelashes at Gukesh’s queen. The Indian’s queen seemed to be following its lead, moving between e7 and g5 squares. Then, when one more step on the g5 square would have solemnised a draw threefold repetition – which would have seen both players head into the second rest day of the 2024 World Chess Championship at 3 points each – Gukesh’s queen opted to swipe left! Instead of heading to e7, Gukesh’s queen went to h4, rejecting the advances of Ding’s queen.
Call it the heady optimism of youth. But the 18-year-old from Chennai had chosen to spurn his world champion opponent’s very evident draw offer.
GAME 6: HIGHLIGHTS
Ding threw a few accusatory looks at his rival at this stage, like the Indian teen had been leading him on.
“I thought I might be slightly worse. I wasn’t sure if I was slightly worse. With the files open in front of his king, I saw no reason to go for the repetition. Not like I was playing for the win or anything, but I just wanted to play a few more moves,” Gukesh said at the post-game press conference.
Gukesh revealed that he had already decided to spurn the draw the time he had repeated the move for the second time.
Asked if that was a psychological ploy to continue playing, Gukesh smiled: “I just like playing chess, yeah? It was more the position than anything else. I did not see too much danger for me. Draw was still a likely result, but I wanted to play a longer game since tomorrow is anyway a rest day.”
When Gukesh was living life on the edge, his mentor Viswanathan Anand was speaking about how the 14-game World Chess Championship had played out so far.
“We’re seeing contrasting approaches. Ding is very solid with white. It’s not like his ideas are lacking venom. But he’s not taking a lot of risk yet. Gukesh is pushing a bit more. But every once in a while, he stumbles. Yesterday, thanks to a miracle, he got away. Gukesh is putting more pressure, but needs to be more exact,” Anand said.
The game did eventually end in a draw after 46 moves. The result means that both players head into the second rest day of the world chess championship even on three points each.
Ding Liren came out swinging in the sixth game with his opening, pushing his young rival into long phases of thought after employing the London System.
Gukesh was trailing as much as 45 minutes on the clock the early phases but managed to navigate himself out of trouble.