FIDE World Championship - A win for Ding Liren in Game 1
My thoughts ....
The first game of the FIDE World Championship 2024 started past 10pm NZ Time. It was great to see Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju taking their seats to face the Classical battle with a long time control. (I must say, this time control is not the players favourite as you can achieve the bonus time only after 40 moves).
Gukesh with White pieces played the first move with e4 and Ding immediately replied with e6 going for a French defence. With both players in prep, it helped them to make some quick moves until Ding spent nearly 30mins for his 7 move with a5 pawns racing the Rook file.
The quick move Qa5 was instrumental in maintaining control of the game, enabling Ding to stabilize the pawn on the a3 square, facilitating the centralization of his Knight within the white camp.
Ding in control of his game, pushed Gukesh to defend in the middle and endgame with poor time on the clock and fighting to make some quick moves to achieve the bonus time after 40 moves. By then, Ding had the advantage in the position to secure a win - a decisive result in Game 1 of the FIDE World Championship after many years.
Game Result 0 - 1 a win with Black pieces, Ding Liren lead the standing for now.