D Gukesh vs Ding Liren Highlights: Gukesh and Ding Liren settle for draw in Round 2 of World Chess Championship 2024

D Gukesh: “Draw with black in the world championship match is always nice and it’s too early, we still have a long match.”

Ding Liren: “In the first game I played something new in the opening and of course it requires a lot of memory. Today I also played not a common move [for me] 1.e4 and I prepared a lot.”

Round 2 of the World Chess Championship 2024 between Gukesh and Ding Liren ends in a draw. Both players decide to settle for a draw after 23 moves each.

Okay, so this happened on moves 20, 21,22, and 23 before Gukesh and Ding Liren decided to go for a draw.

20. Ne2 Nc6
21. Nc3 Nd4
22. Ne2 Nc6
23. Nc3 Nd4

The setup on the board after the 23rd move was such that it was a draw or bust from there and the players opted for a draw. Here’s a look at the board position at the end.

A look at all the moves made by Ding Liren and D Gukesh in today’s match. Liren opened the match with his white pieces.

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 Bc5
4. d3 Nf6
5. Nc3 a6
6. a4 d6
7. O-O h6
8. Be3 Be6
9. a5 Bxc4
10. dxc4 O-O
11. Bxc5 dxc5
12. b3 Qxd1
13. Rfxd1 Rad8
14. Rdc1 Nd4
15. Ne1 Rd6
16. Kf1 g6
17. Rd1 Rfd8
18. f3 Kg7
19. Kf2 h5
20. Ne2 Nc6
21. Nc3 Nd4
22. Ne2 Nc6
23. Nc3 Nd4

Move 16: 16. Kf1 g6.

Just to clarify, Liren is playing with white pieces.

After taking over 15 minutes, Liren takes his white knight from f3 to e1 as it was in danger of getting captured. Gukeh’s knight is on d4. Liren, however, could have opted for capturing the black king pawn on e5 but he decided against taking the aggressive route. Gukesh on the next move took rook from d8 to d6.

Gukesh lost a lot of time but finally made a move, taking his knight from c6 to d4. One more piece was taken away from the c file which was full a while ago. Time-wise, Liren has over 45 minutes advantage over Gukesh.

After Liren’s f3, Guesh responds with Kg7 on the 18 moved. On his 19th move, Liren goes Kf2 followed by h5 for Gukesh. Gukesh is in the ascendancy here having fortified his defense and made a strong wall.

Both players move their rooks and you know what three rooks are now staring at each other in the same d file.

17. Rd1 Rfd8
18. f3

Judit Polgar on air just said that Gukesh is now in a strong position after his last two moves which were rd6 and g6.

The last image we provided did not capture the right moves, so here’s a new view of the live board after both players lost their queens. Gukesh had his rook on d8 so Liren has now moved his white rook to c1.

Gukesh makes the aggressive move and captures Liren’s white queen by moving his queen to d1. Of course, Liren had short-castled earlier and used the rook to capture the black queen quickly. On the next move, Gukesh took his rook to d8. Time for Liren to make a tough decision.

Quite a lot happened in a short while! Gukesh went for a short castle even though he could have captured the white bishop on e3. Gukesh responded by taking out Gukesh bishop with own bishop. That while bishop was quickly put out of the game by a black paw that was on d6 and captured the bishop on c5. Liren was super quick then to move his bishop pawn from b2 to b3.

Gukesh made the first capture by pushing out the white bishop on c4 with his own black bishop. But Gukeh’s bishop is then taken out by Liren’s pawn who was on d3. Both players have lost a bishop each.

A look at the live board where both players have one of their bishops in danger of getting caught but no one is making the move.

The Round 2 between D Gukesh vs Ding Liren has got off to a flier, unlike yesterday with both players making the first 13 moves in just seven minutes. Currently, Gukesh is in a thinking mood on his move after Liren went for casting and his white king moved to g1 while rook went to f1.