Mediaboss Marketing

World Chess Championship 2023

Ding Liren completed a most improbable journey to the summit of world chess on Sunday when he defeated Russias Ian Nepomniachtchi in a heart-stopping tiebreak playoff to capture the sports most prestigious title.

The 30-year-old from Zhejiang province, who never once led in the three-week match at the St Regis Astana Hotel until the moment when victory was in hand, boldly played for a win from what looked to be a drawn position in the last of four rapid games. That fighting spirit paid off handsomely when a stunned Nepomniachtchi resigned after 68 moves, making Ding the first Chinese man to become world chess champion.

This match reflects the deepness of my soul, an emotional Ding said afterward. I could not control my mood. I will cry. I will burst into tears. It was quite a tough tournament for me. I feel quite relieved.

The 2m ($2.2m) world title contest in the Kazakh capital was largely played in the shadow of Magnus Carlsen, the longtime champion and world No 1 who opted against defending his crown last year, citing a lack of motivation to endure the months-long slog of preparation that championship matches demand.

Carlsen had strengthened his claim as the greatest player of any era back in 2021, when he crushed Nepomniachtchi in Dubai in the fourth defense of the title hed first won from Viswanathan Anand in 2013. His winning score of 7-3 with three games to spare was the most lopsided result in a world title match since Jos Ral Capablancas triumph over Emanuel Lasker exactly 100 years before in Havana.

But the Norwegian floated the idea of surrendering his title almost immediately afterward and finally confirmed his abdication last summer. It marked only the second time in the 137-year history of world championship matchplay that a reigning champion has elected to not defend his title after American grandmaster Bobby Fischer controversially forfeited the crown amid clashes with organizers over the match format in 1975.

The most direct beneficiary of Carlsens decision was Ding, who finished second behind Nepomniachtchi in last years eight-man candidates tournament to determine the world title challenger. That set the stage for a delicious matchup between the second-ranked Nepomniachtchi and third-ranked Ding, even if critics including longtime world champion Garry Kasparov criticized it as an amputated event in Carlsens absence.

The bloody, back-and-forth showdown that unfolded in Astana extended into a rapid tiebreak playoff after the scheduled best-of-14-games classical portion ended in a 7-all deadlock, with each player winning three games and drawing the remaining eight.

The first three of Sundays four games, where each player had 25 minutes in total plus an added 10 seconds after each move, ended in draws. The fourth appeared headed in the same direction, a result that would have sent the contest to a second round of tiebreakers under the even shorter blitz format.

But Ding, playing with the black pieces, surprised onlookers by refusing a draw by repititon despite running dangerously low on time, instead self-pinning his king (46. ... Rg6) in a courageous move to play for the full point. From there Nepomniachtchi, suddenly under time pressure of his own, made a series of critical blunders that spelled his doom.

I guess I had every chance, said the 32-year-old from Bryansk, who played under a neutral Fide flag after signing an open letter last year condemning Russias invasion of Ukraine. I had so many promising positions and probably should have tried to finish everything in the classical portion. ... Once it went to a tiebreak, of course its always some sort of lottery, especially after 14 games [of classical chess]. Probably my opponent made less mistakes, so thats it.

Ding, who earned the 1.1m ($1.2m) winners share of the prize fund, joins the Shanghai-born Ju Wenjun to give China both the mens and womens world champions, an unthinkable outcome during the Cultural Revolution when chess was banned as an activity of the decadent West.

{{topLeft}}

{{bottomLeft}}

{{topRight}}

{{bottomRight}}

{{.}}

See the rest here:
Ding Liren succeeds Carlsen as world chess champion with gutsy playoff win - The Guardian

Chess is considered the ultimate game of cold, logical calculation, but it is also a game of passion and, at the highest level, of nerves. That was clear on Sunday when the world championship match in Astana, Kazakhstan, ended with Ding Liren, the new champion, sitting at a board by himself in a darkened theater, his head in his hand, crying tears of joy.

Dings victory came in a tense and gripping rapid-play finale against Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, and only after three weeks of slower-paced games that had failed to produce a winner. The result made Ding the first man from China, a rising power in chess, to hold the world championship. And it simultaneously prevented Russia, which has dominated the game for a century, from reclaiming it.

Dings match against Nepomniachtchi, layered with those geopolitical stakes, was decided in a series of four tiebreaker games made necessary after the regulation portion of the match, 14 grueling classical games, ended in a tie. Each player won three games in the regulation portion; the other eight ended in draws.

The tiebreakers, all played Sunday, were faster games in which each player had 25 minutes at the start, with 10 seconds added every move. The first three games were draws, but each one was highly tense and hard-fought.

In Game 4, Nepomniachtchi, playing white, repeated the opening he had tried in the second game of the tiebreakers. On move 13, he tried a new idea, but Ding capitalizing on its defects soon seized the upper hand.

Still, the game seemed headed for a draw when Nepomniachtchi, with more time left on his clock, decided to make the game more complicated to see if he could force Ding into a mistake. Instead, it was Nepomniachtchi who cracked, making critical errors that allowed Ding to take control. Nepomniachtchi resigned on Move 68.

It was the first and only time that Ding led in the championship match. He earned 1.1 million euros, or about $1.2 million, for his victory, while Nepomniachtchi won 900,000 euros, or about $990,000, as the runner-up.

Dings victory sent waves through Chinese social media late in the evening, with a hashtag related to the new champion quickly amassing over 10 million views on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform. Chinese users, full of pride and relief after three anxiety-filled weeks, celebrated the championship even as some admitted to their ignorance of how to play chess. Nearly all agreed on the weight of the moment.

We Chinese have stepped atop chesss highest stage, one commenter wrote. Ding Liren is the pride of China.

The match had been overshadowed from the start by the absence of Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian grandmaster who had held the world title since 2013. Carlsen voluntarily chose to relinquish the crown last July because he had grown weary and bored of preparing for the matches, a process that takes months.

Carlsen has long been critical of the length of the games for what is known as the classical world championship. Each one can take hours and, particularly in recent years, when players have been able to prepare beforehand with computers, they often end without a decisive result. (For example, Game 14 on Saturday, the day before the tiebreakers, had lasted nearly seven hours and ended in a draw.)

For fans, and potential sponsors, that can make the biggest event in chess less exciting. The match in Astana did not have that problem nearly half of the games ended in victories but that did not change Carlsens opinion.

In a podcast on April 28 on NRK, the largest media company in Norway, Carlsen said: There is a lot of talk now this world championship proves that classical chess is doing well and all that. I have to admit that I dont buy that at all.

He explained that Nepomniachtchi and Ding took many chances in the beginning phases of the games in their championship match, but that was atypical. In his matches, Carlsen said, that did not happen because his opponents were afraid of him and tried to limit risk. The result, he argued, was that the games were not interesting.

Hikaru Nakamura, a five-time United States champion, suggested on a recent livestream that it did not matter who won the Ding-Nepomniachtchi showdown.

The world champion is not going to be treated as a world champion, he said. I dont care if Nepomniachtchi wins. I dont care if Ding wins. Both of them will be very deserving of winning the match. But that will not make them the world champion in anybodys book.

Dings triumph was significant for both China and Russia. Russians have dominated chess for most of the last century, partly a legacy of the Soviet Union, which promoted supremacy in the game as proof of its superiority over the West.

China, rather than embracing the game for similar reasons, rejected it because of itspopularityin whatthe countryviewed as the decadent West. For eight years during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, playing the game was banned.

The perception of chess in China began to change after Xie Jun won the womens world championship in 1991, becoming the first non-Russian, non-Georgian woman to hold the title. That sparked a frenzy of state-sponsored activities designed to cultivate elite players, a project collectively known as theBig Dragon Plan. Chinese schools created chess clubs, and training institutions and tournaments proliferated. Last year, the Chinese government unveiled a new 10-year plan to develop the countrys next generation of prodigies.

Chinas commitment has already yielded results. A succession of Chinese playersafter Xie won the womens world championship, allowing China to hold the title for most of the last 32 years. The current titleholder is Ju Wenjun, who became champion in 2018. She will face a compatriot, Lei Tingjie, in a match in July, ensuring that the womens title will stay in Chinese hands.

China has also produced some very good mens players in recent years, with half a dozen rising into the top 20 in the world rankings at onepoint or another. But Ding has been far and away the best of them.

Born in Wenzhou a year after Xies victory, he was taught to play chess by his father, a chess aficionado, when he was 4. He began to compete in tournaments soon after and won his first national title when he was5. He rose to international prominence in 2009, at 16, when he became Chinas domestic champion. He won the title again in 2011 and 2012.

He has been ranked as high as No. 2 in the world and is the only Chinese player to ever achieve a rating, the points system used to classify players, of more than 2,800.

Dings path to the title was littered with obstacles. The pandemic and Chinas isolation had forced him to stop competing, but in order to play in the candidates tournament last year a requirement to select a challenger for the championship match he had to have played a minimum number of competitions. The Chinese Chess Federation stepped in to organize three tournaments early last year to allow him to satisfy the requirement.

At the candidates tournament, which was held last June and July in Madrid, Ding finished second behind Nepomniachtchi. Normally, that would have only qualified Nepomniachtchi to play for the title against Carlsen. But after Carlsen declined, Ding became the other challenger.

The loss was a crushing one for Nepomniachtchi. Born the same year as Carlsen and often called Russias answer to the Norwegian grandmaster, he had been overshadowed by his rival for years. Nepomniachtchi played Carlsen for the world title in 2021 in Dubai, but after getting off to a good start by drawing the first five games, he collapsed and lost in one of the most lopsided results in the history of the event. This years match, with Carlsen having stepped aside, was a golden opportunity for him.

In the news conference afterward, with members of Dings family and Xie, the first Chinese womens champion, looking on, Ding was asked if the match was one of the crowning moments of his life. He struggled to explain his feelings. The match, he finally answered, reflected the deepest of my soul.

Chang Che contributed reporting from Seoul.

Excerpt from:
Ding Liren of China Wins World Chess Championship - The New York Times

Ding won the rapid chess playoff by 2.5 points to 1.5, capitalising on Ian Nepomniachtchis mistakes.

Chinas Ding Liren has been crowned as the 17th world chess champion after a tense match against Russian-born Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana, Kazakhstan, in the last chapter of an odds-defying sequence of events.

The-31-year-old won the rapid chess playoff on Sunday by 2.5 points to 1.5, capitalising on Nepomniachtchis mistakes in time trouble in the last of the shorter-format games, following the pairs 7-7 tie in a psychological battle across 14 longer classical games.

OneDingto rule em all, fellow grandmaster Anish Giri wrote on Twitter in honour of the new champion.

Dings triumph means China holds both the mens and womens world titles, with current womens champion Ju Wenjun set to defend her title against compatriot Lei Tingjie in July.

The moment Ian resigned, the game was a very emotional moment, I cannot control my feelings, the new world champion said in a news conference.

Ding had levelled the score in the regular portion of the match with a dramatic win in game 12, despite several critical moments including apurported leakof his own preparation.

The Chinese grandmaster takes the crown from five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who defeated Nepomniachtchi in 2021 but announced last July he would not defend the title this year.

Carlsen said he was not motivated to play shortly after Nepomniachtchi won the Candidates Tournament, the prestigious qualifier to the match.

Ding, runner-up in the Candidates thanks to an incredible second half of the event, was next in line.

He had been invited to the tournament at the last minute to replace Russias Sergey Karjakin, whom the international chess federation (FIDE) banned for his vocal support of Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Dingranks third in the FIDE rating list behind Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi.

The new champion will attend from May 4 the first tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest, Romania, after being almost inactive since 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China.

See the original post:
Chinas Ding Liren defies odds to be crowned world chess champion - Al Jazeera English

Olympia High School(OHS) senior Addison Flora and the OHS Chess Academy signed up for the Washington High School Chess Associations Southwest Washington High School Chess Championship. After facing off with opponents from all over the southwest region of the state in an all-day tournament, Flora won the title of champion. There were some intense moments played under strict chess competition conditions, but the event was successful for both Flora and the team with wins sending them all to the state level competition.

The OHS Chess Academy meets every week when students at OHS filter out to different campus activities during Bear Time, an advisory period set aside for academic support and clubs. Math teacher Andres Lopezs advisory period is a chess club, focusing on improving skills and competing. With seniors graduating and freshman entering school, the students in his chess club change annually. On any given week, 35-45 students show up for chess. One of them is Flora, who began playing chess more seriously last winter.

My favorite part of chess is that its like a battle, Flora says. Its one-on-one, but you dont say anything. A lot of sports are very vocal and super intense, loud and with a lot of fans. I like how I can sit across from someone, and we can have that same intense battle, but its with pieces instead of a ball.

Not only a chess champion, Flora also plays tennis, runs track and field at OHS and plans to go to college to study aerospace and engineering.

When Flora and his fellow chess club members heard about the tournament, they decided to sign up and participate just for fun. Flora knows about chess great Magnus Carlson, watches the pros and other young players around the world and studies strategy so he can memorize and prepare.

The biggest way you can study for chess is by studying openings, Flora says. Ill pick the English opening, and Ill memorize what moves Im going to play. Then, depending on what moves my opponent will play, Ill respond to that. So, you can see its like a branch off from that. For each move they can play, theres a move I can play and so on and so on.

On tournament day, 210 chess players from 93 schools, 104 of which were high school students, converged on the Centralia College campus. They were met with rows and rows of tables set with identical chess sets.

During the tournament scoring was recorded for both individual players as well as cumulative team scores. Each win earned one point. No one would be eliminated as each player was matched with a similarly scoring player for five consecutive games. No points were issued for losses and only a half point for a draw.

The tensest moment is usually right after, Flora says of what proceeds from the planned opening. When you have all of the moves memorized at the beginning, youre not very stressed. But, once you have to make all of the moves yourself, thinking and calculating, thats when it gets hard and sometimes gets a little stressful.

Flora counted down each of his 25 allotted minutes per match on the time clock, and a lot rode on each move.

I like to play closed positions and make them complicated because I trust myself to calculate and think through these complex positions, Flora says. So, if I can get to one of those, I feel more comfortable.

Of the final match, Flora adds, It was definitely the best person I played at that tournament, and it was a really close back and forth game. Towards the end I had a really nice deflection.

Chess often gets accolades for the cognitive skills that it fosters. Studies nationwide claim positive benefits to academics. The National Scholastic Chess Foundation describes improvement to concentration and self-discipline and that all levels of critical thinking are at play, which include comprehension, evaluation and analysis. Chess is also fun, so participating in chess club during Bear Time is an opportunity for students to see if they enjoy the game, to experience competition and to perhaps take up a classic pastime that could potentially boost the rest of their school day.

Floras strategic chess moves proved well for him, and he finished with a perfect score, no draws and no losses, earning him the Southwest Washington Regional Chess Champion title. OHS scored 19 points as a team at the regional competition, more than any other team, earning the title of Southwest Washington High School Chess Team Champions, and they qualified to compete at the 57th annual Washington State High School Chess Team Championships in Stanwood, Washington one month later.

Ultimately, Flora and the OHS team have done well for themselves, volunteering to compete in experiences that were both challenging and memorable.

See more here:
Olympia High School Senior Addison Flora Wins the Southwest Washington Regional Chess Champion Title - ThurstonTalk

GM Ding Liren is the new world champion after beating GM Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final rapid tiebreak game of the 2023 FIDE World Championship. Following a 7-7 tie in a thrilling 14-game classical match, it all came down to the final rapid game, which Ding won with Black in sensational style. GM Magnus Carlsen's reign is no more. For the first time since 2013, the torch has been passed to Ding, the 17th world champion.

Aside from claiming the title of world champion, Ding will receive 1.1 million for his victory while Nepomniachtchi will receive 900,000.

How to watch the 2023 FIDE World Championship

Tears of joy and a rare outpouring of emotion from Ding were the first scenes coming out of the St. Regis Hotel in the moments after Nepomniachtchi had resigned in the fourth and final rapid tiebreaker in Astana. With his head in his hands, the realization and relief hit Ding all at once. The scene recalls what Ding had said in 2019: The meaning of life should be in those special, sparkling moments.

The meaning of life should be in those special, sparkling moments.

Ding Liren in 2019

"I feel that this was the match that reflects the deepest part of my soul," Ding said at the press conference after dedicating the victory to his friends, mother, and grandfather. With this victory, Ding becomes the first-ever classical world champion from China, also the home of Women's World Chess Champion GM Ju Wenjun.

With the scores locked at 1.5-1.5 in a match that White had statistically dominated overall (five wins for White and one for Black in the first 17 games), very few people expected that Ding would look to press with Black in the final game.

The Anti-Marshall was the arena for the 18th game. After finding success with the opening in earlier games where he had, in his own words, "had every chance," Nepomniachtchi declared his intent to play for a win with the unusual 13.Bb1.

As the middlegame progressed, both players made decisions that implied that they were playing for a win. Ding would later state: "The white pieces are not always the advantage."

As the position opened up, Nepomniachtchi's bishop pair began to look ominous, and many viewers began to write Ding off. During this time, Chess.com viewership across all platforms peaked at 441,000 viewers, almost doubling the average viewership of the broadcast which had been 220,000. Both numbers are records for the website.

With the chess world waiting with bated breath, Nepomniachtchi soon played an inaccuracy, 35.Ra1?, which brought the position back to equal, although the position still looked easier for Nepomniachtchi. "It was hard to imagine I could lose" were the self-admitted thoughts of the Candidates winner about this moment, and most viewers probably anticipated that it was a two-result match.

Both Caruana and Hess were alert to the fact that Ding's best remaining chance was to play into an ending where the a-pawn could become dangerous, and it seemed that Ding had the same intuitive feeling.

Then, the unexpected happened. With two minutes and 30 seconds left on the clock, Ding played the brilliant 42... Qe2!!, a move that Caruana suggested: "Nepo might have missed." The move, which left Ding's bishop en prise with a dangerous threat of a king and rook fork, shifted the momentum.

Nepomniachtchi briskly offered a draw by repetition with checks on the light squares, and the game appeared to be heading this way before Ding played the astonishing 46...Rg6. In what can only be described as a chess coach's nightmare, the now-world champion's idea to play for a win was to pin his second strongest piece to his king! "I felt my king was safer on h7," was Ding's nonchalant reasoning for a move that would later be identified as the catalyst for victory.

By the time Ding played 47...c4, Nepomniachtchi already knew that he was in trouble: "In the fourth game, I had to play more accurately. After the move c4, I had little time, and it was difficult." Part of this anxiety may have resulted from his opponent's clinical displays of endgame technique so far in the match.

GM Rafael Leitaokindly provides his annotations of the decisive fourth game as well as the others below.

In a style that will now become synonymous with his reign as the 17th world champion, Ding rolled his pawns up the board to victory. A shake of hands on the 68th move signaled the end of an extraordinary match that nearly needed blitz tiebreaks to split the players for the first time in chess history.

Congratulatory messages poured in from chess greats of all generations, although Ding would have likely felt most fulfilled getting the nod from the former world champion GM Magnus Carlsen, who tweeted: "Self-pinning for immortality. Congrats Ding!!"highlighting Ding's ambitious 46...Rg6, which consequently helped him win the crown.

For those interested in the three games that led to the final showdown, they were full of excitement and huge moments as well. Ding opened the tiebreaks with 1.d4, an opportunity for redemption after his game 14 spiraled out of control. In a return to his roots, a Catalan structure soon appeared on the board, and Caruana announced: "Ding was definitely dictating the result of the opening."

Nepomniachtchi played in his usual style, moving both quickly and actively, and neither player shied away from middlegame complications when they arose. Zwischenzug was a central theme for both players in the first game as they wrestled for the initiative.

The most exciting moment of the game came after Nepomniachtchi's 25...axb6!!, an "advanced Botez Gambit," in the words of Caruana, that forced liquidation and, consequently, a draw by repetition after 35 moves.

Speaking about the result, Caruana expressed: "Ian can be very happy after a dangerous opening," while Hess was more upbeat about Nepomniachtchi's courageous effort during the game, quoting Ernest Hemingway: "Courage is grace under pressure."

The Anti-Marshall was Nepomniachtchi's choice in game two, and the decision to play this opening was made with the knowledge that he had found small edges in both games 11 and 13 with the same setup. Like in the 11th game, Nepomniachtchi tried to coax Ding into playing with a b5-c5 setup and gain access to the d5-square, but Ding showed his own hand, changing the dynamics of the position with 11.bxa4.

As the position progressed, Nepomniachtchi earned the right to attack, courtesy of Black's ruptured pawn structure. Hess boldly claimed that there was a distinct "opening advantage for Nepomniachtchi," but Ding once again proved his mettle with clinical defense, exchanging into a drawn rook and pawn ending and keeping the scores level.

Nepomniachtchi, later ruing missed chances in this game, stated: "The key moment was in the second game, I had more chances to win but didn't realize it."

Sachdev highlighted the third rapid game as "the most peaceful," and it turned out to be the calm before the storm. In his last game with the white pieces in the four rapid games, Ding played 1.Nf3 for the first time in the world championship. The Chinese GM's double-fianchetto setup was easily tamed by Nepomniachtchi, and pieces began to fly off the board.

On move 21, a small moment of tension appeared when the commentators realized that Black would have to play a pawn down in a rook and bishop ending. Nepomniachtchi, who had confidently paced around the room for the majority of the game, saw no issues with the position and proved that White's advantage was superfluous. He eventually forced a rook swap that left the players hurrying toward a repetition.

After the fateful deciding game and being freed from the shackles that prevented them from sharing information about their preparation and teams, Nepomniachtchi would reveal that his team included none other than former world champion GM Vladimir Kramnik as well a "big team" in support that included GMs Maxim Matlakov, Ildar Khairullin, and Nikita Vitiugov.

Ding's second was slightly more obvious. His partner in crime, GM Richard Rapport, posed with friends, family, and fans after the historic win.

When asked about how he would celebrate the victory, Ding mentioned that he would "like to travel" in his spare time. As far as spare time goes, there will be little rest for the champion after this event. In four days, he will begin playing in the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest, Romania, joined by Nepomniachtchi, Rapport, and other top GMs.

As this tournament wraps up and the cycle begins again, several questions come to mind. How long will Ding hold the most coveted title in chess? Will Carlsen challenge him in the next cycle? Regardless of the answers, this is certain: Chess has never been more alive than now, and the 2023 FIDE World Championship was an absolute testament to the excitement that chess can provide.

In the words of GM Anatoly Karpov: "Chess is everything: art, science, and sport."

You can watch video recaps of the FIDE World Championship in our playlist below (click here).

Match Score (Tiebreaker)

Match Score (Classical)

The 2023 FIDE World Championship has been the most important over-the-board classical event of the year and has decided the next world champion. Nepomniachtchi and Ding played a match to decide who takes over Carlsen's throne when the former world champion abdicated his title. The match had a 2 million prize fund and was played over 14 classical and four rapid tiebreak games.

Previous Coverage

Read more from the original source:
Ding Liren Wins 2023 FIDE World Championship In Rapid Tiebreaks - Chess.com