It felt much more like forced error than unforced error or, thematically, the closest thing I’ve seen to a milling strategy in chess. Just make them keep drawing until they’re out of ideas.
It was a forced error in the sense that Ding forced that exact endgame for no real reason and then fluffed it with 10 minutes on his clock plus increment. What's incredibly sad is that Ding clawed his way back into the match in game 12 by doing exactly what you describe - he created a horribly cramped position, refused to release the tension, and eventually Gukesh ran out of good moves and lost without any egregious blunders.
I'm explicitly not a chess player but this reminds me of Dave Sirlin's "Play To Win" where he starts by explaining that if doing a thing makes you not lose, you do that, and then eventually by definition you win.
That kinda works for fighting games, since draws are rare, as the players need to either double KO or timeout with the same exact amount of health. Chess is very different in theres (at least) 3 ways to draw, and it's very easy to fumble a won position into a draw.
Not in chess, where the (by far) most likely outcome of a world championship classical game is a draw. When Magnus Carlsen played Fabiano Caruana for the world championship, EVERY classical game was a draw and they had to go to tiebreaks, which no longer makes it a classical tournament.
Yes and if all you can do is draw in the world championship then you’ll be in trouble when the faster time controls are brought in to resolve the match.