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I'm glad we're of the same mind on this Geeker, I have little to no time for these types of baseless accusations.

It was really quite painful to see the anguish and distress Ding was quite plainly going through. Thanfully, Gukesh had the good grace not to gloat and, even when he couldn't stop himself from a brief smile, he covered his face with his hands - a classy move IMHO.

That's an interesting mention of gloating, Brendan. It's definitely not etiquette in chess, nor in bridge. Apparently someone was banned from the Portland Club for shaking hands with his bridge partner in congratulations after a good result on a hand.

However, gloating in the form of often extreme goal celebrations is acceptable in football. Is that because it's a team game? Yet professional tennis players often throw themselves to the ground in delight before going to the net to shake hands with the defeated opponent who has had to wait at the net.

Entirely agree that the accusation by the Russian president of FIDE is sour grapes.

Just correcting the inaccuracy at the end of my previous post.

The criticism of Ding Liren came from the president of the Russian Chess Federation, not the World Chess Federation (FIDE). However, the FIDE president, Arkady Dvorkovich, is also Russian. I haven't seen his reaction to his countryman's comments.

Thanks Paul, that's very interesting to see the different approaches as to what is accepotable in relation to winning reactions and game etiquette in general.

I've just been watching the last 10 minutes of Chess.24's live (at the time) feed of game 14 (beginning 4;18;30 - see below) and GM Naroditsky's suggested move for Ding after Gukesh played Ke5, was "okay, so rook f2, rook b1 check....." and GM Leko didn't disagree, and it was only when the eval. bar dropped to zero that they both saw it, so clearly Ding wasn't the only GM who missed it.

I think I'm just a bit peeved at all the online Monday morning quarterbacks that seem to be opining on this at the moment.

https://youtu.be/rqA9mvyI0j4?t=15501

I saw that same video, Brendan. The part you mention was really funny...Although I have to mention that far prior to that moment, GM Leko explained very clearly that trading one set of pieces (Bishops leaving Rooks or Rooks leaving Bishops) with 3 K-side pawns against 2 would be an easily drawn endgame, BUT that trading all the pieces would be a losing Pawn endgame for White.

I think that some other commentators spotted the blunder faster.
Howell and Houska called it immediately - see 4:28 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec_SkIkHs1Y
- but they may have been looking at the evaluation. Ditto Chessbase India.

Thanks for the David Howell's and Jovanka link, I hadn't seen that and am a fan of both.

Geeker, in the link you sent me I noticed Gukesh remains at the table and resets all the pieces except for the Kings, which he leaves side by side in the centre of the board - do you know if this is just a personal idiosyncracy of his or is there another reason for it, perhaps related to protocol?

Brendan, I saw commentary to the effect that Gukesh always resets the board. He was doing it in every game. Some other players, most notably the respected "chess gentleman" GM David Navara, are known for this.

Leaving the Kings in the center of the board is required. Big tournaments use "DGT" boards with electronic sensors, and that particular position of the Kings (is it e4 and d5? I never noted the details) signifies that the game is concluded. If the players didn't put the Kings there, an arbiter would.

Many thanks Geeker, I've always put a very high value on good manners, so that pleases me immensely:-)

Oh, I just looked it up...
At the end of a game, the Kings are placed in the e4-e5-d5-d4 square region. Both Kings on Black squares indicates Black won, both on White squares indicates White won. One on Black and one on White indicates a draw.