“Extremely sharp and tense”
Nepomnyashchi grabs the lead at the World Chess Championship
4/18/2023, 4:51 p.m
Jan Nepomnjaschchi leads again: The Russian wins the seventh game of the World Chess Championship in Astana in a duel with the Chinese Ding Liren and is now 4:3 in the lead. Nepomnjaschtschi initially comes under a lot of pressure – but then benefits from a blackout by his opponent.
The Russian Jan Nepomnyashchi won the seventh game at the World Chess Championship and took the lead again with 4:3. The 32-year-old prevailed in Astana against the Chinese Ding Liren (30) after 37 moves. The duel between the two grandmasters goes into the next round on Thursday in the Kazakh capital with the eighth game. There is no game on Wednesday.
Nepomnjaschtschi had opened the game with the white pieces and surprisingly got on the defensive at first. “The whole game was extremely sharp and extremely tense,” said the Russian, who was surprised by his opponent with a French defense. The duel then turned out to be largely even before Nepomnyashchi benefited from a blackout by his Chinese opponent, who had meanwhile taken the initiative.
There’s a world title at 7.5 points
Ding completely lost track of time and control of the game. “I don’t think I played that badly, but in the end I messed everything up,” said the Chinese.
At the World Cup, 14 games will be played with long periods of time. A win is worth one point, and a draw gives each player half a point. Whoever reaches 7.5 points first wins. In the event of a tie, the decision will be made in a tie-break on April 30th.
Nepomnyashchi had won the 2022 Candidates Tournament, Ding had finished second. Because permanent world champion Magnus Carlsen did not compete due to a lack of motivation, the two are playing for the world title.