Ding resurfaces at the Chess World Cup: he returns to the chair and achieves a soothing draw thanks to his friends and Bob Dylan

There are draws that taste like victory.

Like that of Liren Ding with the black pieces against Ian Niepómniashi in the third game of the World Chess Championship in Astana (Kazakhstan) after losing the second on Monday, very depressed.

In less than 48 hours, the Chinese has been transformed: now he smiles effortlessly, he is almost always on stage and not in the dressing room, and he plays much better.

On Thursday he will have the initiative for White in the fourth of the 14 scheduled games with the score against 1-2 and two million euros at stake (60% for the winner).

“They offered me a psychologist, but I turned it down.

It was my friends who fixed my emotional problem," Ding explained, radiant, at the press conference, while Niepomniashi, about three meters away, made a face of not understanding his rival's sudden metamorphosis, adding that listening had also helped him.

,

Bob Dylan.

Shortly before he had come up to even say that he was not happy with the result because he had come to have an advantage.

The contrast with Monday's Ding was so great that you had to rub your eyes to make sure it wasn't a dream.

project expeditions

in Soviet times.

Apparently, chess and cosmonautics mix very well because the American Neil Armstrong, the first human being to set foot on the Moon, was also a chess player, like another hero of the USSR, Vitali Sebastiánov, who also later presided over the Soviet Chess Federation and he was a close friend of Anatoli Karpov;

so much so that he was seen crying through the halls of the Tchaikovsky Theater in Moscow on November 9, 1985, when his idol was dethroned by Gari Kasparov.

Cosmonaut Talgat Musabayev takes the honor roll in the third game.Anna Shtourman/FIDE

That special guest gave the perfect footing to wonder if Ding would still be on the Moon, like in the first two games.

Niepómniashi's first move fueled that belief because he surprised the Chinese by advancing the queen's pawn (1 d4) instead of the king's pawn (1 e4), which is his favorite opening.

But it took Ding barely 30 seconds to concede that small blow —it can be assumed that he came very prepared against 1 e4—, and he began to play with great ease, very convinced of what he was doing and barely leaving the scene, except for short escapes.

That attitude fits well with the anger that the Chinese delegation showed on Tuesday morning about Ding's attitude in the second round, when he stayed up to 27 minutes in his dressing room despite the fact that it was his turn to play.

Apart from Bob Dylan and his friends, it can also be assumed that Ding was given a clear warning to change his behavior urgently.

Did.

And, indeed, there was a moment when he gave the feeling that he was playing to win, without settling for a draw.

But, beyond small inaccuracies, Niepómniashi remained solid until the distribution of the point by triple repetition of plays, in movement 30 and after little more than three hours of interesting fight.

Niepómniashi did not sound very convincing when EL PAÍS asked him why he had not achieved any advantage after following by heart the first 16 movements of a game by Ding against the Dutchman Anish Giri, sixth in the world, in 2022: "The Queen's Gambit is a type of opening that produces very even positions if both sides play well”, he explained, which makes little sense because the Russian's 17th move was worse than Giri's.

The most logical interpretation is that Niepómniashi proposed a calm game, without preparing it very thoroughly, with the double objective of surprising his opponent in the choice of the opening and putting the rod to see if he would bite (he made a mistake), given his obvious state of fragility on Sunday and Monday.

But lo and behold, the Asian fell suddenly from the Moon to Earth at the speed of a spaceship.

It's not hard to imagine him singing

as he walked back to his hotel, smug even though he's one point down.

But there are 11 rounds left in a fight that was supposed to be very tough, and perhaps it is despite everything.

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