 "Ding Liren: Chinese GM who learnt chess from his mother at age of 4 gearing up to defend world title against D Gukesh")
Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren faces probably his toughest test yet when he faces India’s D Gukesh at the 2024 World Chess Championships scheduled to take place in Singapore from 25 November to 13 December. Liren is the defending champion of the World Chess Championships after having beaten Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 final in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Gukesh, on the other hand, qualified for the Championship match after winning the Camdidates tournament in Toronto earlier this year. Many, including Magnus Carlsen , Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura have backed Gukesh to win the title this year.
D Gukesh | Indian teenage prodigy from Chennai set for World Chess Championship clash with Ding Liren
Who is Ding Liren?
Chinese Grandmaster Liren was born in Wenzhou on 14 October, 1992. He started learning chess from his mother when he was just four years old. Chen Lixing, who coached women’s world champion Zhu Chen, was Ding’s coach during his early days of playing chess. He was tied first at the Under-10 and Under-12 World Youth Championships in 2003 and 2004 respectively, although he went onto finish second in both competitions after the tie-breaks.
Ding was just 16 years old in 2009 when he became China’s youngest-ever chess champion. He won the Chinese chess championship in 2009, helping him earn the title of a Grandmaster. He repeated the Chinese championship success in 2011 and 2012.
Ding’s international breakthrough
Ding slowly transitioned into taking on the best players from across the world. He helped China win the gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in 2014, and the World Team Championships in 2015. In 2015, he followed the footsteps of Wang Yue to become only the second Chinese player to enter the top 10 in the world. Ding reached the finals of the Chess World Cup in 2017 and 2019, but failed to win the title on both occasions.
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Ding secured the individual as well as the team gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in 2018, and surpassed the Elo rating of 2800, becoming the first Chinese player to do so. Ding won 100 back-to-back classical chess matches between 2017 August and 2018 November.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsDing, however, endured 13 draws in 14 matches at the 2018 Candidates tournament in Berlin, but went onto win the Sinquefield Cup, which is a Grand Chess Tour title. Ding finished fifth with seven points at the 2020 Candidates in Russia amid the COVID-19 pandemic. At the 2022 Candidates, Ding defeated Fabio Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, but finished second, behind Ian Nepomniachtchi.
Carlsen, who was the reigning world champion at the time, withdrew from the World Championship match and his spot went to Ding.
Ding’s World Chess Championship win
The 2023 World Chess Championship match was contended between Ding and Nepomniachtchi. The scores were 7-7 after 14 matches, and in the rapid tie-break, Ding defeated the Russian by a score of 2½-1½ to become the first player from China to win the World Championship.
Also Read | Gukesh doesn't have World Championship experience: Carlsen's advice to Ding Liren
Ding, however, took a break from chess for nine months after the win due to mental health struggles, and only returned to competitive chess at the 2024 Tata Steel Chess tournament in Netherlands in January, where his last victory in the Classical format in also came. It remains to be seen as to how Ding will approach the match against Gukesh. In an interview on Take Take Take’s YouTube channel, Liren had said that he was “worried of losing badly” to Gukesh .
Also Read | Gukesh's coach says Ding Liren's bad form 'does not matter so much' ahead of World Championship
“This is the longest I have gone without a classical win…. Maybe I’m not so eager to play…I don’t have the same ambitions to win… I’m worried about losing very badly (to Gukesh), hopefully it won’t happen," Liren had said.
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