World Chess Championship Match - Game 9 annotated

Oh boy! This guy, Ding, he is really living dangerously! 

Gukesh's extremely rare continuation in the Catalan caught Ding by surprise, although we have seen this move (10.Bc3) this year in the Giri-Niemann match last summer in Utrecht. Niemann responded more aggressively than Ding and even won the game. Ding invested lot of time and when he played 15...Nb6 Gukesh instantly played 16.Ba5 pinning the knight. Judging by Ding's body language he had missed this move and he became visibly nervous shaking his head in disbelief. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with 15...Nb6, but the fact that he missed it in addition with the low time on his clock, mounted too much pressure on him and eventually produced a real inaccuracy; 17...Bxf3?!

However, at the critical moment of the game Gukesh failed to feel the real needs of the position and went on in a forcing continuation which simplified matters much to Ding's relief. Gukesh failed to switch from concrete play to a Karpovian style of play and let Ding off the hook.