The New Chess Champion: Ding Liren

After more than a decade of pure domination from Magnus Carlson, the World Chess Champion (WCC) title has finally been passed on to a new heir. Magnus decided to not participate due to lack of motivation, as he feels that he has “nothing to gain” by defending his title. While Magnus was playing poker in a streamer tournament, Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi were putting on a legendary display of engine level chess for all fourteen games of the tournament, tying in points at the end of the series. The tiebreaker was an instant death round of rapid, which means that the implementation of a faster chess clock forces the players to have less time to think through their moves. After two more drawn rapid games, the brilliant Ding pulled off a stunning rook block, preventing another inevitable draw. The catch: Ding only had one minute on the clock. With a brutal string of fast paced moves, Ding tore apart Nepo’s defenses and pulled off an absolutely beautiful position forcing a resignation from Nepo who had only 30 seconds on the clock. Finally, after twelve years of a stagnant chess champion slot, a new king took the throne.

Ding Liren was not supposed to be the champion. At the age of sixteen, he won the Chinese Championship before he was even a grandmaster. In 2015, he won 100 high level chess matches in a row, a record at the time. However, because of COVID-19, Ding was forced to stay in China, and was unable to play in the qualifying tournament for the WCC. After a Russian player was expelled for voicing support for Russia in the Ukraine war, Ding took the spot as the highest rated player available. Ding and the Chinese Chess Federation had to pull together two dozen top level games in the span of a month to qualify. Ding played them all and just barely qualified legitimately in time for the WCC. Ding was definitely not the favorite for the tournament, with Nepo already qualified for first, and his final opponent being arguably the second best player in the world, Hikaru Nakamura. Shockingly, Ding upset Hikaru and strong-armed his way to second place in the qualifying round. According to tradition, Nepo was to play Magnus in the WCC as he was the defending champion, but because of Magnus’ decision to not play, the final became a match between Nepo and Ding. Nepo had actually already played in the final of the WCC, losing to Magnus in embarrassing fashion at the previous tournament. Nepo was on a mission, but Ding was determined and came back to draw from many negative positions. Ding won, not because he was the more established or a legendary player, but because he had the grit to fight his way up the brackets.

By Elijah Roth