A match for the world title ended in Astana on Sunday on chess. The new, 17th owner of the world crown was the 30-year-old Chinese Ding Liren, who outplayed the 32-year-old Russian Yan Nepomniachtchi. 14 games of classical chess did not reveal a winner — 7-7. At the tie-break, the representative of China was stronger with a score of 2.5-1.5.
Nepomniachtchi approached the match as the winner of the Candidates Tournament and was supposed to play against Magnus Carlsen. But the Norwegian world champion last summer refused to defend the title, and the Russian's opponent was Ding Liren, who took second place in the Candidates Tournament.
“The moment when Yang gave up was very emotional for me, I could not control my feelings, burst into tears. It was a very difficult match, I want to thank my friends. Now I finally relaxed,” Ding Liren said after the victory .
“I started playing chess at the age of four, trying to improve my game for 26 years. Maybe I was not so famous among the elite players, but I did my best. Sometimes I thought that I would have been better as a teacher, because that there were moments when I lost, and it seemed to me that it was better to do something else in order to be happy. Victory in this match will always be in my soul,» the grandmaster emphasized.
Nepomniachtchi was upset:
“I had every chance, I should have finished the match in classical games, I missed one or two exact moves, and a tie-break is always a kind of lottery, especially after 14 games in classical games.” And he explained the fatal defeat in the fourth tie-break match as follows: «The game was difficult, Black (Ding Liren) had the initiative, I blundered c4, after that it was difficult to rebuild. I did not think that this position could be lost, but it turned out what is possible.»
Ding Liren, becoming the champion, will receive 55% of the prize pool of the match, which is 2 million euros. Nepomniachtchi will get 45%.
Again failure The duel was for Nepomniachtchi a second chance to ascend the chess throne. Two years ago, the grandmaster won the Candidates Tournament in Yekaterinburg, and in December 2021 in Dubai he played a title match against Carlsen, who became world champion for the first time in 2013. The first five games ended in peace, and the Norwegian won in the protracted sixth. The defeat psychologically broke Nepomniachtchi, and in the future he was unable to resist his opponent. Carlsen won an early victory with a score of 7.5-3.5.
Like the devil out of a snuff box, the representative of China has been unspeakably lucky more than once. First, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) disqualified for six months and actually deprived the right to participate in the Candidates Tournament Russian Sergey Karyakin for his public support of the CBO. A vacancy arose, but in order to get it, the Chinese, who had not played in official competitions for almost a year, had to play three dozen games of classical chess in a month.
Din Liren was met in the country, and he played in China the number of matches necessary to calculate the rating. But the Candidates Tournament frankly did not work out for him. For a long time he was at the bottom of the table and only due to a successful finish broke into second place. Which, however, did not give anything in terms of the chances of fighting for the title. But then it became known about Carlsen's refusal, and FIDE sanctioned a match for the world title between Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren.
On the Seesaw The opening game ended in a draw, while in the second game the Chinese, who played White, came under a devastating attack and quickly lost. Many were confused by Ding Liren's behavior in these fights, he tried to spend as much time as possible not at the board, but in the rest room, wrapping himself in warm clothes and thinking about moves. In addition, before the start of the match, the grandmaster unexpectedly left the official hotel, preferring another one.
Such actions, coupled with not the best game, gave rise to speculation that the Chinese had something wrong in terms of psychology and the match could end with an early victory for the Russian.
However, the Chinese grandmaster pulled himself together, won in the fourth game and equalized the score. The segment from the fourth to the seventh game was a real feast for the fans, because none of the meetings ended in a draw. How can one not recall the championship matches in 2016 and 2018 with the participation of Carlsen, when out of 24 games in the «classics» only two ended effectively.
Although the opponents sometimes made mistakes that are unforgivable for a match of this status, and a number of experts criticized the participants for their not very high level of play, the intensity of the struggle only increased.
“The abundance of mistakes, on the one hand, arouses suspicion: are the best chess players in the world really playing? Yes, they are among the top three grandmasters in the world, and mistakes are not an indicator of the level of chess talent, but an indicator of stress, which is inevitable when playing match for the world championship,» said FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich.
The next four fights ended in a draw, and after 11 games the Russian was leading 6-5. The twelfth game could have predetermined the outcome of the confrontation: Nepomniachtchi had a chance of winning and, if successful, would go into an unattainable gap. But one hasty move of the pawn — and the situation changed dramatically: Ding Liren won and again equalized the score.
The penultimate game didn't reveal a winner, and in the final game in the «classics» Nepomniachtchi had the initiative and the advantage. But a careless pawn move and the advantage almost melted away. The Russian continued to squeeze water out of the stone, intensely tormenting the enemy, but Ding Liren held out like an impregnable Chinese wall. And after 90 moves and six and a half hours of struggle, peace was again concluded.
“We expected a tie-break as the most likely outcome. Although during the tournament, Yang missed more chances (to win) than Ding Liren. Including in the last game. But for the spectators, a tie-break is the best thing that can be «This match went down in history. 14 games were played, and six of them were scoring. And it's always interesting,» summed up Arkady Dvorkovich.
An Unexpected OutcomeThe world champion has once again decided on a tie-break. This is the third time this has happened since 2016.
The first three duels between Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren ended in a draw. Moreover, in the opening, Nepomniachtchi offered an elegant queen sacrifice, but Ding Liren prudently declined it. It seemed that the fourth game would again end with a repetition of moves. But the Chinese played in tight time trouble until he won, and after his opponent's mistake, he won both the game and the world crown.
The Russian chess school, despite the failure, once again confirmed its high level. Since 2016, four championship matches have been held, and Russians played in three of them — Karjakin and twice Nepomniachtchi.