World Chess Championship Match - Game 5 annotated

Today Gukesh with White "served" from the right side, which made me think that he has prepared something in the French Defence. Ding confident enough and with no hesitation went again for the French Defence awaiting to see what Gukesh has prepared. 

When he took exd5 going for the Exchange Variation many of us must have felt puzzled. Isn't the Exchange Variation dry and drawish? Is that really what he wants to do in his game with White? Maybe he prepared something in this variation? As the game progressed it turned out that there was no opening surprise prepared. The only reasonable reason for repeating 1.e4 is that perhaps Gukesh was pondering that Ding would had been quite sceptical about repeating the French Defence and that he will play 1...e5 eventually allowing Gukesh to choose from a variety of openings.

This is just an assumption of mine of course. In any case Ding showed us today that he is very confident in the French Defence. He believes in this solid counter-attaking opening and Gukesh with his team will have to work a bit harder if they want to shake Ding. Today he even got the chance for a pleasant advantage but he sold it cheaply with the ugly Bc6. 

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