Almanac Chess: The 17th World Chess Champion!

 

Ding Liren (China) has won the Chess World Championship in Astana, Kazakhstan last night. He becomes the 17th World Champion of chess, replacing Magnus Carlsen (Norway) who has held the title for ten years.

 

To me, it’s impressive, as the story reads like a movie script.

 

Originally Ding Liren wasn’t even in the Candidates Tournament last year, because he hadn’t played enough games to qualify, as Chinese people weren’t able to travel during Covid.

 

But his chess rating and his credentials were high. So when they needed a replacement for Sergey Karjakin, who was banned from the Candidates Tournament for being a ‘Putin supporter’, Ding was invited  to compete, so long as he quickly played about 20 other Chinese players in a few weeks to pass the minimum number of games qualification.

 

In the Candidates Tournament, he lost his first few games, seemingly after arriving late and having jet lag. He never was in contention to win that tournament. But he won his last few matches to scrape into 2nd place. Only then, Magnus Carlsen announced he wasn’t going to bother to defend his title, so FIDE invited the top two players from the Candidates’ to compete for the World Championship.

 

Best of 14 matches. It finished this weekend, 3 wins each, with 8 draws, against the Russian, Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding was never in the lead once, he always drew level from behind.

 

Then they decided the winner last night with a series of four rapid games on the same day. The first three games finished as draws, and Ding won the 4th match.

 

A deserving winner? He was never in front at any point until he won it.

 

He’s a likeable guy in the press conferences. He’s always polite and open to questions. But, of course, he speaks slowly and measuredly because of his level of English.

 

 

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