Ding Liren won a nervy first game against Gukesh in the World Chess Championship held in the Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore.
Ding, playing with the black pieces, tried to surprise Gukesh with the French Defence but it was he whohad to spend time trying to get an acceptable position. Maybe that dominantstart slightly lured Gukesh into a false sense of safety and there followeda number of inaccurate and then bad moves from him. Gukesh had one chance to get back into the game later on but time trouble and a bad position sealed his fate.
This result will surely have done wonders for Ding's confidence having not won a classicalgame since January but both will surely hope to play better than this later in the match.
Game summary and annotated PGN below.
