After suffering a loss in Round 1 of the 2024 FIDE World Championship Match, it was important for Gukesh Dommaraju to stop Ding Liren’s winning ways in the second game. The opening which started out as a Giuoco Pianissimo and evolved into an Italian Four Knights Game may seem a little elementary for the World Championship but Ding Liren posed interesting questions to his opponent by pushing his a-pawn to a5 in the early going. With this innovative opening approach, there were some interesting opportunities for for both players to spice up the position. However, Gukesh seemed content to not play overly risky and Ding Liren elected to steer the game toward an early draw rather than beginning a pushback with 20. h4.
Young chess players can learn a lot when a popular scholastic chess opening is played in the World Championship. In this video, California Chess Coach Chris Torres explains all of the key ideas from the Round 2 game between Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju. Using notes from his forthcoming book on the 2024 FIDE World Championship Match, Chris Torres shows plenty of intriguing ideas to his students from this brief but exciting chess game.