Young Indian Grandmaster D Gukesh on Sunday took a giant step towards the World Chess Championship title by defeating defending champion Ding Liren in the 11th game, taking a 6-5 lead in the contest after a spate of draws. With three games to go, Gukesh now has a crucial lead in the 14-round classical format match. History is now on Gukesh’s side as no challenger in modern chess has ever scored a win after being tied 5-5 after the 10th game. For Liren, the only comforting thing could be the fact that he had won the 12th game in the last World Championship match against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. The Indian started off with the Knight move on his first turn and was surprised as Liren went for a reverse Benoni opening. The move was shocking as it looked like it was an over-the-board decision rather than a planned one. After only five moves, Gukesh had a lead of over an hour on the clock, which is never too easy for the opponent to recover in crunch games. However, if everyone thought that the opening had gone seriously wrong for Liren, the Chinese had different ideas as he capitalised on an erroneous plan by Gukesh in the early middle game. Things turned upside down when Liren went for completing his development and missed out on a simple manoeuvre that would have probably given the defending champion slightly better prospects. Gukesh himself spent a lot of time in the middle game but the nature of the position remained double-edged.
