A very precise game, says Gukesh after a draw without any fireworks

Heading into a rest day, challenger Gukesh and reigning world champion Ding are tied at 4.5-4.5 after sixth draw on the trot in nine games

- Susan Ninan

BENGALURU: There are draws and then there are uneventful draws. Game 9 of the World Championship match was quite comfortably the latter. Very little happened on the board; the juice ran out of the position fairly early and it was then just a long wait for both players to shake hands and call it a day. This was the sixth straight draw in nine games. The match between reigning world champion Ding Liren and challenger Gukesh heads into a rest day with the scores still even at 4.5-4.5. Five more classical games remain.

Playing with the White pieces on Thursday, Gukesh threw in a rare 10.Bc3 move (instead of the bishop going to f4) in the Catalan Opening. Ding was pretty much on his own and went into extended periods of thought over the next couple of moves. So much so that by move 16, the time he had left on his clock was an hour less than that of Gukesh. The Indian later reflected that he perhaps played 20. Qb5 a "bit fast". According to the computer evaluation, White galloping his Knight from c4 to e5 was the best move on that turn to create long-term pressure on Black, with the assistance of its Catalan bishop.