Liren-Gukesh clash: 'Mistake after mistake'

Ex-champions unimpressed by level of play at FIDE world chess

- AMIT KAMATH

THE FIDE WORLD chess championship battle between holder Ding Liren and challenger D Gukesh spiced up quite early, with the Chinese grandmaster winning game 1 before allowing his opponent to level the score in Game 3.

THE FIDE WORLD chess championship battle between holder Ding Liren and challenger D Gukesh spiced up quite early, with the Chinese grandmaster winning game 1 before allowing his opponent to level the score in Game 3. Heading into Tuesday's Game 7, both players are tied with three points each after three successive draws.

However, former world champions like Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik have been left underwhelmed by the quality of play so far in the title showdown.

Kramnik flayed the players for calculating too much and not playing like humans. "Frankly, I am very disappointed by today's game (Game 6). Even Game 5 was not extremely high level, but today it was really—for a professional—it was really weak play from both players. It's a very disappointing level," former world champion Kramnik ranted while analysing game 6 on his YouTube channel.