World Chess C'ship: Gukesh holds Liren to 4th draw; score remains tied

India's D Gukesh held reigning champion Ding Liren to a draw in the sixth game of the World Chess Championship in Singapore on Sunday. This was the third draw in a row between the two players, leaving the score level at 3.

Both players are now shy of 4.5 points from winning the championship.

Gukesh and Liren agreed to a draw after 46 moves. It was the fourth draw between the two players in this World Championship match.

Liren won the opening game, while Gukesh clinched the third game to restore the parity, with the second, fourth and fifth games ending in draws.

With six games over, eight games still remaining in the 14-round match. The match will resume after the second rest day on Monday.

Liren went for the London system with his third white in the match and blitzed out the first 20 moves, conceding a mere seven minutes on the clock.

Time-consuming affair

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

Gukesh used a little over 50 minutes in the first part of the game, conceding 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 judgment.

Liren took a long while to decide his next move. In the process, he spent all his extra time and settled for a draw.

Gukesh stood firm in his game and repeated the position twice. And then much to the surprise of the global audience, spurned the unconditional draw offer by not going for the three-fold repetition.

Liren needed 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 and 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.