China’s Ding Liren will defend his World Chess Championship against rising Indian teenager Gukesh Donmaraju in Singapore for the next three weeks. It will be the first time in the 138-year history of World Championship Match Play that two male athletes from Asia will compete for the sport’s most prestigious title.
But is that really all you need to know? What is the format, how much are they getting paid and why is the world No. 1 watching from the sidelines? Read all answers…
When and where is the World Chess Championship held?
The best-of-14 matches are scheduled to be held from November 23 to December 15 at Resorts World Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s south coast. This will be the second time that a World Championship match will be held in Southeast Asia, the first being in Baguio City in 1978 when Anatoly Karpov defeated Viktor Korchnoi to retain the title.
Who are Ding Liren and Gukesh Donmaraj?
Ding Liren became China’s first world men’s chess champion after defeating Ian Nepomniachy in a tiebreak in Kazakhstan last year. The 32-year-old from Zhejiang province is known for his solid and precise style of play, which allows him to create small positional advantages from quiet openings, and is the highest-rated Chinese player of all time. The Peking University Law School graduate once had a 100-game unbeaten streak in classical games, a record that was only broken by Magnus Carlsen in 2019.
Gukesh Donmaraju, popularly known as Gukesh D, is an 18-year-old Indian prodigy who became the third-youngest grandmaster in history at the age of 12 years and 7 months. In April, the 17-year-old Chennai native won the eight-a-side Candidates tournament in Toronto, topping a field alongside Nepomniachi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana, making him the youngest player ever to win a world championship. He became a challenger for the championship and surprised the chess world. An aggressive fighter known for exploiting sharp tactical gaps and creating complex positions that made his opponents uneasy, he defeated Garli, who was 22 years old when he dethroned Karpov in a rematch in Moscow in 1985.・There is a possibility that he could break the record held by Kasparov for being the youngest undisputed world champion.
Who is the current number one chess player in the world?
Magnus Carlsen remains at the top of Fide’s world rankings with a classic rating of 2831. The 33-year-old Norwegian has been ranked No. 1 for more than 14 consecutive years and was considered the best player in the world even before he defeated Viswanathan Anand in the final. 2013 World Championship.
Carlsen strengthened his case as the greatest of all time by defeating Nepomniatchi in his fourth defense of the title in Dubai in 2021. However, he decided not to make a fifth title defense in 2023, citing a lack of motivation to complete the months of preparation required for a world championship match. This is only the second time in the history of World Title Match Play that a holder has chosen not to defend the title, since Bobby Fischer was controversially stripped of the belt in 1975.
Instead, Ding defeated Nepomniatchi in a thrilling match for the vacant title, even though critics, including Kasparov, branded it a “disconnected” event without the participation of the world’s best players. Carlsen continues to actively compete in various elite tournaments and events, including the Fischer Random competition, which is held days before the world title match, which is also held in Singapore.
How do they rank internationally?
In the latest world rankings, Gukesh is ranked 5th with a Fide rating of 2783, while Ding has plummeted to 23rd place with a rating of 2728.
That made Ding not only the lowest-ranked world champion of the Elo era (dating back to 1971), but also the only title holder to fall outside of the top ten during his reign.
How do they match?
Due to their age difference, Din and Gukesh have only met three times in classic games. Ding has held a 2.5-1.5 edge in head-to-head matches since January 2023 with two wins and one draw. The most recent match between the two took place in January at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Weig aan Zee, where Ding played as a black man and won. .
But amidst well-documented struggles with depression, Ding has only played 44 classical matches in the 18 months since winning the world title. Since returning from a nine-month hiatus to prioritize his mental health, Ding has lost four straight, finished last at the Norwegian Chess Tournament in May, and started nine matches at the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis in August. They won by only 3.5 points and finished third from the bottom. At the Chess Olympics held in Budapest in September, he failed to win a single match and fell out of the top 20. He will enter the world title match without a win in 28 fights. The streak in the classic game dates back to January.
Most of the world’s top players have expressed great pessimism about Ding’s chances due to his sparse activity and outstanding performance. So do the oddsmakers, who project him as an approximately 3-1 underdog. Carlsen said: “Obviously Gukesh is the big favorite and if he strikes first he will have no problem winning the match. But the longer he is without a decisive match, the better for Ding Liren. That’s because he has the ability but lacks confidence.”
How much is the prize for winning?
The total prize money is $2.5 million (£1.98 million). Each player receives $200,000 for each match won, including forfeited matches. The remaining balance of the prize fund will be divided equally between both parties. If a tiebreaker determines a winner, the winner will receive $1.3 million and the runner-up will receive $1.2 million.
Each player received a $200,000 advance payment that was deducted from the prize pool one month before the first game. The remaining balance will be transferred to the player within 14 business days after the match ends.
What is the tournament schedule and structure?
Ding and Gukesh will play up to 14 classic games, with each player awarded 1 point for a win and 0.5 points for a draw. The first person to reach 7.5 points will be declared the champion (no further matches will be played).
The time limit for each game is 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the remainder of the game, increasing by 30 seconds for each move starting with move 41. Players cannot agree to a draw before the match. Black’s 40th move. Earlier draw claims are only allowed if three repetitions or a stalemate occurs.
If the score is tied after 14 games, a series of tie-break games will be played with faster time control.
Full official regulations can be found here.
What else should I know?
The World Chess Championship is typically held every two years, but this schedule changes over time. A split in 1993 between Fide and the Professional Chess Association (PCA), a breakaway circuit founded by Kasparov and British grandmaster Nigel Short, ushered in an era in which two world championship titles competed. The titles were reunited in 2006.
Robert Sapolsky, a biologist and neuroscientist at Stanford University, says elite chess players can burn up to 6,000 calories a day while playing in tournaments, which is more than the average person. It states that this is three times the daily calorie intake. Karpov infamously lost 22 pounds (10 kg) for his grueling world title fight against Kasparov in 1984, but the fight was controversially canceled after five months and 48 fights due to concerns about the fighter’s health. Ta.
It is a historic feat that Gukesh is playing for a world title. Until April, the teens had been performing indifferently as candidates for years. The only candidates younger than Gukesh were Bobby Fischer in 1959 and Carlsen in 2006 (both 16 years old at the time), and both ran for office.
Ding, who earned 1.1 million euros (approximately 120 million yen) in prize money for winning the title in April 2023, joins Shanghai-born Zhu Wenjun in bringing both men’s and women’s world championships to China. This result would have been unimaginable during the Cultural Revolution, when chess was popular. It was banned as a decadent Western activity.
