World Chess Championship Match - Game 7 annotated

What a fighting draw today! The challenger managed to confuse the champion in the opening. Ding spent too much time in this so called Neo-Grunfeld opening trying to decide which set-up to adοpt.  His pawns on c6 and c4 were asking him to play a la Catalan with ...b7-b5 (which was the best option), but his bishop on g7 was asking him to play a la Grunfeld with ...c6-c5 hitting the d4 square.

Eventually, Ding went for the a la Grunfeld continuation and obtained an acceptable position despite the d6 passer and the bishop pair that Gukesh secured for himself. With 41 minutes left on Ding's clock Gukesh unleashed the 19.b4!? advance which really caused another 15 minutes of thinking for Ding any many of us thought that Gukesh's strategy has very real chances to shake Ding and bring a win today especially after Ding being short of time, went after the a2 pawn which Gukesh offered cleverly to him...

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