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World Championship Match 2023 - Game 8

WHAT A GAME!

We were almost missing a good draw in this amazing match. And today's game proved to be the most incredible so far, with the two players showing their human side.
These champions amaze us when they can play long streaks of moves as if they were chess engines. They prepare so deeply with powerful engines that sometimes, not even GMs watching the game (without a computer) can fully understand what's happening on the board.
Yet, today Liren and Ian played a rollercoaster game, making brilliant moves and blundering away their advantage.
Ding had the game in his hands more than once but didn't find the right (and only) move to win it. Ian even bluffed, getting Liren to believe he had a perpetual check! It wasn't there, as Ian admitted during the press conference, but the clocks were down to a few minutes, and psychologically it was a masterpiece by the Russian. Ding, after losing game seven virtually on time, was probably scared of getting again into time trouble and didn't feel like investing too much time trying to figure out whether the perpetual was possible or not.
In a way, it's beautiful to see the two super-GMs play completely on their own and even make mistakes that, without the tension that must grip them in a deadly hug, even a normal player wouldn't make.
The draw, after all, was the right result.
Here is the game:

Here is the press conference from the FIDE Official YouTuibe channel: