It all comes down to the final day after Game 13 ends in draw

Ding Liren's impressive defense with black pieces at the World Chess Championship tied the match 6.5-6.5, leading to a decisive final game.

If Ding Liren needed some background music at the World chess championship, a song in Tamil — one of the official languages here in Singapore — would be a top contender: Anuradha Sriram’s Karuppu thaan enakku pidicha colouru (The colour I like is black).

But for a blip in Game 11, in which he lost with black pieces, Ding has been superb with the colour usually less favoured in chess. A draw with black pieces is considered worthier than with white. It is almost priceless when you could do it in the penultimate round of a keenly-fought, still tied World championship.

So with just one game remaining in the classical format, the match is tied 6.5-6.5 at World Resorts Sentosa. The situation is simple after Game 13 ended in a draw.

On Thursday, the winner of Game 14 will become the World champion. If it is a draw, the tie-breaks of speed chess will be played on the following day.

On Wednesday, when he had less than five minutes to make 10 moves, Ding found the only one that could salvage his position. He had to move his rook to the ‘f8’square. Any other move would have led to a possibly devastating defeat at such a stage of the match with just one game remaining.

So, he found 31…Rf8.

Not for the first time, Ding’s inner Houdini made an appearance. His defence has been top-notch here.