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China’s Ding Liren will defend the World Chess Championship against rising Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju over the next three weeks in Singapore. It is the first time in the 138-year history of world championship matches that two Asian men will face off for the sport’s most prestigious title.
But is that really all you need to know? What about the format, how much they get paid and why the world number 1 is watching from the sidelines? Keep reading for all the answers…
When and where does the World Chess Championship take place?
The best-of-14 match is scheduled to take place from November 23 to December 15 at Resorts World Sentosa, a resort town off Singapore’s south coast. It is only the second time a world championship match has been held in Southeast Asia and the first since 1978, when Anatoly Karpov retained his title by defeating Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio City.
Who are Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju?
Ding Liren became China’s first men’s world chess champion by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi last year in a tiebreaker in Kazakhstan. Known for his strong, precise style of play based on creating small positional advantages from discreet openings, the 32-year-old from Zhejiang province is the highest-rated Chinese player of all time. A graduate of Peking University Law School, he remained undefeated in 100 consecutive classical matches, a record streak broken only by Magnus Carlsen in 2019.
Gukesh Dommaraju, commonly known as Gukesh D, is an 18-year-old Indian prodigy who became the third youngest grandmaster in history at 12 years and seven months old. In April, at age 17, the Chennai native stunned the chess establishment by winning the eight-man candidates tournament in Toronto to become the youngest challenger at the world championship, finishing at the top of a field that included Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. An aggressive player known for using sharp tactical openings to create complex positions aimed at destabilizing his opponents, he can break the record for youngest undisputed world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Karpov in their rematch in 1985 in Moscow.
Who is the current world number 1 in chess?
Magnus Carlsen holds the top spot in the Fide World Rankings with a classic rating of 2831. The 33-year-old Norwegian has been ranked No. 1 for over 14 consecutive years and was considered the best player in the world even before beating Viswanathan Anand for the title. world championship in 2013.
Carlsen reinforced his claim as the greatest player of all era in 2021, when he crushed Nepomniachtchi in Dubai in the fourth title defense. But he decided not to defend it a fifth time in 2023, citing a lack of motivation to complete the months of preparation that world championship matches require. It was only the second time in world title match history that a holder chose not to defend their crown after Bobby Fischer controversially lost the belt in 1975.
Instead, Ding defeated Nepomniatchi in a thrilling match for the vacant title, although critics including Kasparov called it a “cut-off” event without the involvement of the world’s best player. Carlsen continues to actively participate in various elite tournaments and events, including a Fischer Random competition a few days before the world title match, also in Singapore.
Where do they rank internationally?
Gukesh is ranked 5th in the most recent world rankings with a Fide rating of 2783, while Ding has dropped to 23rd with a rating of 2728.
This not only makes Ding the lowest-ranked world champion in the Elo era (which dates back to 1971), but also the only titleholder to fall outside the top 10 during his reign.
How do they fit together?
Due to their age difference, Ding and Gukesh have only met three times in classic games. Ding holds a 2½-½ lead in their head-to-heads with two wins and one draw, all since January 2023. Their most recent meeting took place in January at the Tata Steel chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee , where Ding won playing with black. .
But Ding played just 44 classic matches in the 18 months since winning the world title, amid a well-documented bout with depression. Since returning from a nine-month break to prioritize his mental health, Ding has suffered four consecutive defeats and came dead last at the Norwegian chess tournament in May, and finished third from bottom of the table. Sinquefield Cup in August in St Louis after winning just 3½ points from nine. games, then failed to win a single game at the September Chess Olympiad in Budapest and dropped out of the top 20. He enters the world title match on a 28-game winless streak in the classic games dating back to January.
Most of the world’s top players have expressed great pessimism about Ding’s chances due to his lack of activity and unremarkable form. The same goes for oddsmakers, who have him installed as a roughly 3-1 underdog. Carlsen says: “Obviously Gukesh is a big favorite, and if he strikes first, he will win the match without any problem. However, the longer it goes without a decisive match, the better it is for Ding Liren, because he has the ability but he doesn’t have the confidence.
What is the prize money for winning the championship?
The overall prize fund is $2.5 million (£1.98 million). Each player will receive $200,000 for each game won, including games won by forfeit. The remaining balance of the prize fund will be shared equally between them. If the winner is decided by tiebreaker, the champion receives $1.3 million and the runner-up will take home $1.2 million.
Each player received a $200,000 advance on their winnings a month before the first game, which was deducted from the prize fund. The remaining balance will be returned to players within 14 business days after the end of the match.
What is the schedule and how does the tournament take place?
Ding and Gukesh will play up to 14 classic matches, with each player receiving one point for a win and half a point for a draw. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared champion (and no further games will be played).
The time control for each game is 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the remainder of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting from move 41. Players are not allowed to accept a draw before black’s 40th move. A request for a draw before this date is only permitted if a triple repeat or stalemate has occurred.
If the score is tied after 14 games, a series of tiebreak games with faster time controls will be played.
The full official rules can be viewed here.
What else should we know?
• The World Chess Championship is typically held every two years, although this schedule has varied over time. In 1993, a schism between Fide and the Professional Chess Association (PCA), a breakaway circuit formed by Kasparov and British grandmaster Nigel Short, marked the start of a period when two world championship titles were contested. The title was reunified in 2006.
• Robert Sapolsky, a biologist and neuroscientist at Stanford University, says an elite chess player can burn up to 6,000 calories a day competing in a tournament, three times what the average person consume daily. Karpov infamously lost 22 pounds (10 kg) during his grueling world title encounter with Kasparov in 1984 before it was controversially called off after five months and 48 matches due to concerns over the players’ health.
• For Gukesh to even play for the world title is a historic feat. Until April, the teens had had an indifferent record among candidates over the years. Only Bobby Fischer in 1959 and Carlsen in 2006, then aged 16, were younger than Gukesh, and both were also hikers.
• Ding, who won 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) in prize money for winning the title in April 2023, joined Shanghai-born Ju Wenjun to give China the world champions masculine and feminine, an unthinkable outcome during the Cultural Revolution when chess was banned as an activity of the decadent West.
• There are between 1078 at 1082 atoms in the observable universe. The number of possible chess games is much higher: around 10120 different positions calculated by the American mathematician Claude Shannon. There are about 85 billion different ways to play the first four moves alone. Shannon’s number is at least one of the reasons why a sport played for over 1,500 years continues to arrest the imaginations of all cultures with the relentless promise of infinite potential, all within those 64 tiny squares .