He had cleared the time control, and had 10 minutes on the clock + an increment on every move…he played sharper moves in the match with much less time on his clock, and more complicated positions.
It was weirdly reminiscent of his giving up mate in two to Carlsen a while back. Just a moment of inattention is enough.
An unexpected time-pressure blunder, to be sure, but the issue had at least some subtlety in it. During the live stream, the commentators casually considered Rf2 without noticing any issue (suggesting the black might simply reply …Rb1 rather than …Rxf2), and in the press conference Gukesh said he didn’t realize the opportunity immediately and was considering …Rb3 in the case of Rf2. It was only after the move appeared on the board that he recognized both (1) at that moment the bishop could not move off the a8-h1 diagonal (otherwise there is no issue) and (2) that the resulting pawn endgame was winning due to the availability of …Ke5 in reply to Ke1.
Ding still should have seen all that before moving, but at least to other top players it also appeared to be a harmless move at first and one that, in time trouble, might get blitzed out. Normally that sort of rook trade is to be avoided like the plague by black if they want to press.
Ding also noted that the position was far from a trivial hold even without such a calculational oversight. It seems like exactly the kind of pawn-up endgame that the best of the best like to squeeze for all they’re worth, snatching the extra half-point once in a while (as Carlsen is known to do with such “drawn” endgames.)
For funzies, you can load up the endgame here and click “Continue from here” to try to hold as white versus the engine.
An enjoyable match overall with several interesting games and positions!
In other news, the hunt for qualification to the 2026 Candidates Tournament is already underway. Most qualification routes happen over the course of 2025, but one spot is awarded to the winner of the 2024 FIDE Circuit. Heading into the last month-ish of the circuit, Arjun Erigaisi was leading in circuit points, but Fabiano Caruana won clear 1st at the US Masters and tied for 1st at the St. Louis Masters, while Erigaisi managed only 2nd at the Qatar Masters. Thus, Caruana now leads by several circuit points heading into the last two relevant events of the year, the FIDE World Rapid and FIDE World Blitz Championships to be held at the end of December. Most of the top names in chess will be playing. As long as Caruana isn’t massively out-scored by Erigaisi in those events, Caruana would be the first player to qualify for the 2026 Candidates Tournament.
It’s funny, on the Jovanka Houska/David Howell livestream, Howell gasps instantly when the move is made. They have no engine, and he says “he’s blundered!!..hasn’t he?!”
But fair enough. In any case, a funny way to wrap it up, and good for Gukesh (as you say) applying pressure like that.
In other news, the hunt for qualification to the 2026 Candidates Tournament is already underway. Most qualification routes happen over the course of 2025, but one spot is awarded to the winner of the 2024 FIDE Circuit. Heading into the last month-ish of the circuit, Arjun Erigaisi was leading in circuit points, but Fabiano Caruana won clear 1st at the US Masters and tied for 1st at the St. Louis Masters, while Erigaisi managed only 2nd at the Qatar Masters. Thus, Caruana now leads by several circuit points heading into the last two relevant events of the year, the FIDE World Rapid and FIDE World Blitz Championships to be held at the end of December. Most of the top names in chess will be playing. As long as Caruana isn’t massively out-scored by Erigaisi in those events, Caruana would be the first player to qualify for the 2026 Candidates Tournament.
Fun to watch Erigaisi steadily working his way up. He’s 4th on the rating list now.
They have the evaluation bar on their screens. Its sudden change is what triggered their mutual gasps. The “hasn’t he?” sounded to me like the not-too-rare British affectation dropped in mindlessly as Howell was processing what was happening in the position, which was fairly quick since the eval bar told him there was a win present.
(I saw a supercut of several live streams’ reactions, and they were all humorously identical. Calm chatter, then eval swing, then “Whah!?!?”, then a brief delay, and only then “He can take the rook!”)
Yeah, he’s on a tear. I’m rooting for Fabi for this qualification spot, though!
This is not “news”, but just an interesting factoid I came across that I thought I’d throw in here. In the history of chess, the Queen – the most powerful piece on the board – was not always so. Prior to about the 15th century, the piece we now know as the Queen was called the ferz or fers and could only move one square diagonally, later enhanced to being able to move two squares on its first move. So in fact it was little better than a pawn.
Wikipedia says the modern Queen came into being in 15th century Spain, significantly changing the game of chess:
Yes indeed. In fact both the Queen and the bishop were seriously underpowered in ancient times - the rook and to some extent the knight were far more powerful.
Magnus quits rather than switch out of jeans:
Brian
They changed the rule, and he’s back in.
I’m watching today, and he’s one point behind Caruana in the blitz championship, with both about to play each other. Very exciting!
A tense draw resulted…
RIP Boris Spassky. One of my favorite players - classy and smart, and also played interesting chess well into ‘retirement’.
Chess inspires art at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio:
And in case anyone doesn’t know, Knuth (the artist) is a legend of computer science. I hadn’t even realized he was still alive.
Bump for bad reasons, US GM Daniel Naroditsky is dead. He was one of the most popular chess influencers on youtube / twitch. Lots of speculation about depression and suicide and feuding with Vladimir Kramnik. Very sad.
Jesus. I followed his channel for years but have been on a break recently from chess. This is incredibly upsetting.
The cause of death was released a few days ago: Cardiac arrhythmia, probably caused by methamphetamine and kratom, although neither appeared to be at lethal levels.
This is interesting, in the sense that the overwhelming opinion at the time of his death seemed to be suicidal action (perhaps prompted by Kramnik’s asshole behavior).
But this seems much more accidental than suicidal, unless I’m reading it wrong.
Per the Guardian, it seems more was some undiagnosed inflammatory disease with the drugs being a likely contributor:
According to the report, postmortem radiographic imaging revealed extensive granulomatous lung disease, findings that are “highly suggestive” of sarcoidosis. Cardiac sarcoidosis can disrupt the heart’s electrical system and is a known cause of sudden death, sometimes without prior diagnosis or warning symptoms.
The medical examiner noted that sudden unexpected death is the presenting manifestation in a significant proportion of cardiac sarcoidosis cases.
So he definitely didn’t overdose per se. It is possible chronic drug use caused his undiagnosed issue. He had been taking “Adderall” (‘probably Adderall’ by some reports) that has friends had confiscated two days before his death, which he didn’t have a prescription for. Apparently “counterfeit Adderall” made with methamphetamine is an increasing problem. So non-toxic traces of meth might come from those (since no drugs or drug paraphernalia were found at his home). Since he by all accounts definitely wasn’t sleeping properly, it seems like a combo of stress, exhaustion and whatever drugs tripped the Do-Not-Pull cord of an underlying medical issue he wasn’t even aware of.
Just tragic.
It sounds like a situation where one issue potentiated another.