Ding Liren is World Chess Champion get over it

Ding Liren

Ding Liren of China defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 World Chess Championship to become the World Chess Champion, to the displeasure of a vocal many. The reason for the unhappiness is that Ding is merely the third ranked chess player in the world behind Magnus Carlsen. Nepomniachtchi is the second ranked player.

Ding Liren and Nepomniachtchi finished up the most exciting chess championship in recent years with Ding Liren winning the fourth tie-break game. This after their fourteen round match ended with them tied at three victories each.

Carlsen decided not to defend the title he held for the last ten years and this is the crux of the issues against Ding, although anti-Chinese sentiment plays a role as well. What do I think about all this? Let me tell you.

Carlsen Refuses to Defend

Magnus Carlsen is one of those rare champions who truly dominates an individual sport. He is a Roger Federer or Tiger Woods like player. He won the World Chess Championship back in 2013 and defended it four times. He earned the title as the top-ranked player in the world in 2010 at the age of nineteen.

After ten years of holding the title, Carlsen decided not to defend it for a fifth time. He is widely considered the best chess player of all time.

The Championship Format

The world chess champion is decided in a peculiar way and I think that is the cause of much of the angst about Ding Liren. Unlike many team sports, there is not a championship tournament every year. Unlike many individual sports, the champion is not determined by a point rating system at the end of the season.

In chess, the champion remains champion for two years and then defends the title against a challenger who wins a tournament called Candidates. Magnus decided not to defend so it was decided the first and second place finishers in the Candidates tournament would play for the championship.

Nepomniachtchi won Candidates with Ding Liren finishing second. In a normal year this would result in a match between Nepomniachtchi and Carlsen, a rematch from the event two years ago when Carlsen thoroughly dismantled the challenger winning three games and losing none.

There are many people who, quite vocally, proclaim Ding Liren is not a valid champion. That the real champion is still Magnus Carlsen.

Ding Liren is the Champion

Poppycock! Ding Liren is the World Chess Champion for the simple reason he won the title. The Boston Bruins recently completed the best regular season in the history of the NHL. They lost in the first round of the playoffs. No one is going to claim the Bruins are the real Stanley Cup Champions.

If Magnus chose to defend, it’s likely he would have won but we will never know. What doesn’t happen, doesn’t happen. Any speculation on what might have happened is just that, speculation. There is no way to know. What we do know is they played under the rules and Ding Liren won.

Conclusion

Is Magnus Carlsen the best chess player in the world? Yes. He’s the number one ranked player and he will remain so until some future date. Is he the World Chess Champion? Nope, not anymore. He chose not to defend. It’s really that simple.

Ding Liren is the champion and to the victor go the spoils.

Tom Liberman

Wesley So and the Question of Pragmatism over Glory

Wesley So

Today was an interesting day in the chess world when Wesley So decided on a pragmatic course of action when he had an opportunity for glorious victory. It was a complicated decision with a number of factors but I thought it was the correct choice; I am interested in what other people think. Let me explain.

There is a chess event called the Grand Chess Tour in which the top players in the world compete in a series of individual tournaments. The top four point getters in all the tournaments advance to a big money final. Each of the tournaments themselves have significant prizes for finishing in the top spots. Wesley So was invited to participate even though he had a relatively subpar chess season the previous year. He is considered one of the weakest players in the event. Weak being relative, he is a fantastic chess player by any standard.

In the first stop of the tour he did reasonably well, fourth out of ten players, and is having an excellent tournament in the second stop, this is where he made his pragmatic decision.

The current stop on the Grand Chess Tour, Croatia, has more points available to get into the finals than other events because of the format. It also has a somewhat different structure than other tournaments in that the players play eleven games in twelve days with only a single rest day after the sixth game.

Wesley So is doing exceptionally well. Going into the penultimate round he was in clear second place behind only World Champion Magnus Carlsen who is playing some of the best chess of his career. He was also a full point ahead of several players who were tied for third place. In a chess game you get half a point for a draw, 1 point for a win, and 0 points for a loss.

This situation means if he drew the game against Carlsen it almost certainly guaranteed Wesley So would finish the tournament in second place. This finish would gain him significantly more money and points than finishing tied for third or worse, a distinct possibility if he lost the game against Carlsen.

Wesley So was playing with the white pieces which is considered an advantage and generally speaking the player with white is the aggressor and the player with black is trying to draw the game, although this is certainly not absolute.

I know I’ve spent considerable time setting up the question but I think it’s important that we weigh all the factors, overall Grand Chess Tour position, individual event position, general fatigue, the state of Carlsen’s play, etc.

In any case, Wesley So played a relatively passive game and quickly settled for a draw with Carlsen. This almost guaranteed him second place in the tournament and also allowed him to rest up for the final round of a tournament in which fatigue certainly plays a role.

Many people are being critical of this decision, they think he had a chance to win the tournament and he should have gone all out, even though doing so against an in-form Carlsen was extremely dangerous. Wesley So weighed the benefits of drawing against the negative potential of losing and decided the former was the wiser course of action. I happen to agree with him but I can see the other point of view.

So, what do you think?

Should Wesley So have gone for Glory or was a Pragmatic Draw the right decision?

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Tom Liberman