China’s Ding Liren is defending the world chess championship towards fast-rising Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju over the following three weeks in Singapore. It’s the primary time within the 138-year historical past of world championship matchplay that two males from Asia will compete for the game’s most prestigious title.
However is that each one you really want to know? What concerning the format, how a lot they’re getting paid and why the world No 1 is watching from the sidelines? Learn on for all of the solutions …
When and the place is the world chess championship?
One of the best-of-14-games match is scheduled to happen from 23 November to fifteen December at Resorts World Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s southern coast. It’s solely the second time a world championship match has been held in Southeast Asia and the primary since 1978, when Anatoly Karpov retained his title by defeating Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio Metropolis.
Who’re Ding Liren and Gukesh Dommaraju?
Ding Liren grew to become China’s first males’s world chess champion by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi final 12 months on tiebreakers in Kazakhstan. Identified for his strong and exact enjoying type primarily based on creating small positional benefits from quiet openings, the 32-year-old from Zhejiang province is the highest-rated Chinese language participant of all time. A graduate of Peking College Regulation Faculty, he as soon as went unbeaten in 100 straight classical video games, a document streak damaged solely by Magnus Carlsen in 2019.
Gukesh Dommaraju, generally often called Gukesh D, is an 18-year-old Indian prodigy who grew to become the third-youngest grandmaster in historical past at 12 years and 7 months. In April, at 17, the Chennai native surprised the chess institution by successful the eight-man Candidates event in Toronto to grow to be the youngest ever challenger for the world championship, ending high of a stacked subject that included Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. An aggressive participant identified for utilizing sharp, tactical openings to create complicated positions aimed toward unsettling opponents, he can shatter the document for youngest ever undisputed world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Karpov of their 1985 rematch in Moscow.
Who’s the present world No 1 in chess?
Magnus Carlsen holds the highest place in Fide’s world rankings with a classical ranking of 2831. The 33-year-old Norwegian has been ranked No 1 for greater than 14 straight years and was thought-about the world’s finest participant even earlier than he defeated Viswanathan Anand for the world championship in 2013.
Carlsen strengthened his declare as the best participant of any period in 2021, when he crushed Nepomniachtchi in Dubai within the fourth protection of the title. However he determined towards defending it for a fifth time in 2023, citing a scarcity of motivation to undergo the months-long slog of preparation that world championship matches demand. It marked solely the second time within the historical past of world title matchplay {that a} holder opted to not defend his crown after Bobby Fischer controversially forfeited the belt in 1975.
As an alternative, Ding defeated Nepomniatchi in an exciting match for the vacant title, even when critics together with Kasparov branded it an “amputated” occasion with out the world’s finest participant concerned. Carlsen continues to compete actively in varied elite tournaments and occasions together with a Fischer Random competitors days earlier than the world title match, additionally in Singapore.
The place do they rank internationally?
Gukesh is at No 5 in the newest world rankings with a Fide ranking of 2783, whereas Ding has plumetted to twenty third with a ranking of 2728.
That not solely makes Ding the lowest-ranked world champion of the Elo period (which dates again to 1971), however the lone title-holder to fall out of the highest 10 throughout his reign.
How do they match up?
Attributable to their age distinction, Ding and Gukesh have met solely 3 times in classical video games. Ding holds a 2½-½ edge of their head-to-head with two wins and one draw, all since January 2023. Their most up-to-date assembly occurred in January on the Tata Metal Chess Match in Wijk aan Zee, the place Ding received enjoying as black.
However Ding has performed solely 44 classical video games within the 18 months since successful the world title amid a well-documented bout with despair. Since getting back from a nine-month hiatus to prioritize his psychological well being, Ding suffered 4 consecutive losses and got here in lifeless final on the Norway Chess event in Could, completed third from backside at August’s Sinquefield Cup at St Louis after successful simply 3½ factors from 9 video games, then didn’t win a single sport at September’s Chess Olympiad in Budapest to drop out of the highest 20. He enters the world title match on a 28-game winless streak in classical video games courting again to January.
A lot of the world’s high gamers have expressed nice pessimism about Ding’s possibilities on account of his sparse exercise and unremarkable kind. So too have the oddsmakers, who’ve put in him as a roughly 3-1 underdog. Carlsen says: “Clearly, Gukesh is a big favourite, and if he strikes first he’ll win the match with none hassle. Nonetheless, the longer it goes with out a decisive sport, the higher it’s for Ding Liren, as a result of he has the flexibility however he doesn’t have the arrogance.”
What’s the prize cash for successful the championship?
The general prize fund is $2.5m (£1.98m). Every participant will obtain $200,000 for every sport received, together with video games received by forfeit. The remaining steadiness of the prize fund shall be break up equally between them. If the winner is set on tiebreakers, the champion receives $1.3m with the runner-up taking dwelling $1.2m.
Every participant obtained a $200,000 advance on their winnings one month earlier than the primary sport that was deducted from the prize fund. The remaining steadiness can be remitted to the gamers inside 14 working days after the completion of the match.
What’s the schedule and the way does the event work?
Ding and Gukesh will play as much as 14 classical video games with every participant awarded one level for a win and a half-point for a draw. Whoever reaches seven and a half factors first can be declared the champion (and no additional video games can be performed).
The time management for every sport is 120 minutes per facet for the primary 40 strikes, then half-hour for the remainder of the sport, with a 30-second increment per transfer beginning with transfer 41. Gamers are usually not allowed to comply with a draw earlier than black’s fortieth transfer. A draw declare earlier than then is simply permitted if a threefold repetition or stalemate has occurred.
If the rating is equal after 14 video games, a sequence of tiebreak video games with sooner time controls can be performed.
The whole official laws may be discovered right here.
What else ought to we all know?
The world chess championship is usually held each two years, although this schedule has assorted over time. A 1993 schism between Fide and the Skilled Chess Affiliation (PCA), a breakaway circuit fashioned by Kasparov and British grandmaster Nigel Brief, ushered in a interval the place there have been two competing world championship titles. The title was re-unified in 2006.
Robert Sapolsky, a biologist and neuroscientist at Stanford College, says an elite chess participant can burn as much as 6,000 energy a day whereas enjoying in a event, 3 times what a mean particular person consumes each day. Karpov infamously misplaced 22lbs (10kg) throughout his grueling world title encounter with Kasparov in 1984 earlier than it was referred to as off controversially after 5 months and 48 video games on account of considerations over participant well being.
That Gukesh is even enjoying for the world title is a historic achievement. Till April, youngsters had had an detached document within the Candidates over time. Solely Bobby Fischer in 1959 and Carlsen in 2006, each then 16, have been youthful than Gukesh, and each have been also-rans.
Ding, who earned €1.1m ($1.2m) in prize cash for successful the title in April 2023, joined the Shanghai-born Ju Wenjun to offer China each the lads’s and ladies’s world champions, an unthinkable final result throughout the Cultural Revolution when chess was banned as an exercise of the decadent West.
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