Sindarov arrived at this game on four wins from five and left it a point and a half clear of the field. What he does here is not the sort of thing a leader is supposed to do: he lets his kingside pawns be doubled, leaves his king in the centre for thirty moves, and gives a pawn away. Every one of those decisions buys an open line, and by move nineteen all three annotators have stopped talking about the pawn count. The other half of the game is the clock. Wei Yi spent thirty-four minutes on one move and forty-six on another, and Sindarov, who could see it, started answering instantly.