World Chess Championship 2023 thread - Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren
Anyone else following the world chess championship?
Background info (feel free to skip if you're already familiar with this):
After reigning champion and world #1 Magnus Carlsen declined to defend his title, the winner of the Candidates tournament 2022, Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi (world #2), faces the second place finisher in the Candidates, China's Ding Liren (world #3). The championship match takes place over 14 games from April 9-April 30 in Astana, Kazakhstan. As of today, April 13, the score is even at 2-2 after 4 games.
Ian Nepomniachtchi (aka "Nepo") won the Candidates tournament in 2020-21, which was split in two due to covid. He proceeded to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the title in late 2021. Both players performed with computer-like precision for the first five games. Game six became the turning point, when Nepo made a serious blunder which allowed Carlsen to eventually convert the game to a win in what would turn out to be the longest game in world championship history, lasting more than 7 hours and 136 moves. After this grueling loss, Nepo's play seemingly collapsed, allowing Carlsen to take a comfortable win with games to spare.
However, Nepomniachtchi would bounce back to win his second Candidates tournament in a row in 2022. When it became clear that Carlsen would not defend his title, the runner-up of that tournament, Ding Liren, became the second player to compete for the title.
Ding has been a top 5 player for years, with 2018-2019 being his best period yet, when he reached world #2 with well over 2800 Elo, and was undefeated for 100 games of classical chess. This is his first appearance in a world championship final, and also a first for China as a nation.
Russia, of course, has a long history of world champions, dominating the chess world for most of the 20th century. Nepomniachtchi, who is a critic of the invasion of Ukraine, competes under a neutral FIDE flag in this match.
This is only the third time the reigning champion has not defended his title since the first world championship in 1886. Bobby Fischer famously disagreed with the match regulations proposed by FIDE, chess' international governing body, and refused to defend his title in 1975. He subsequently retired from competitive chess and didn't re-emerge until the 1990s. The other instance was Alekhine in 1948 -- he had died two years earlier. (There was also a time in the 1990s when the reigning champion, Garry Kasparov, broke with FIDE and organized his own world championship, but I won't get into that complicated story here.) This is the first time a world champion has continued to play competitive chess while refusing to defend their title.
Nepomniachtchi comes into the match ranked as the world #2 (2795 Elo) while Ding is #3 (2788). The abdicated king of chess, Magnus Carlsen, remains #1 (2853).
How to watch
If you want to watch live, the time zone is a bit unfavorable to European and American viewers, as the games start at 3PM Astana time (11 AM Central European summer time, 2 AM Pacific). You can follow the games without commentary here: lichess chess24 chess.com. There's several streams with grandmaster commentary available. FIDE has an official broadcast, but my favorite is chess.com's coverage, which features commentary by GMs Anish Giri, Daniel Naroditsky and David Howell.
For live computer analysis that's stronger than what you can (likely) get from running a local instance of Stockfish on your own computer, check out Sesse (which is just Stockfish running on a decently beefy server setup).
If you want shorter after-the-fact recaps, there are several Youtube channels catering to differing levels of chess skill, including:
- Powerplaychess (GM Daniel King)
- FIDE (GM Daniil Dubov)
- Gothamchess (IM Levy Rozman)
- Agadmator
- Chessnetwork
And probably at least a half-dozen more.
Who's your favorite to win it all? Does the fact that the clearly best player in the world refused to compete make the whole thing uninteresting to you? Will Nepo crumble again like he did against Carlsen, or will Ding's inexperience with world championship matches be his undoing?
To start the discussion with today's result: I'm really happy to see Ding bounce back. I'm fairly neutral, unlike when Carlsen was playing, but I slightly favor Ding just because I'm charmed by his very humble and reserved nature (also his style of chess and opening choices are closer to mine than Nepo's is). Ding was very candid about how he was struggling to handle the nerves in the first few games, but he remarked after game 3 that he was finally spending more time at the board than hiding in his private resting area at the back. And today he struck back to level the score with a brilliant victory due to a single, massive blunder by Nepo.
Now the whole dynamic of the match turns on its head. At the beginning, it seemed like Nepo had a clear edge in the mental game due to his experience playing the WCC before. Now, you have to wonder if he'll collapse like he did against Carlsen, or if he'll take the loss on the chin and we'll continue with a close match.
Also, I have to say it's refreshing to see two decisive results in the first four games! The previous few WCCs haven't been boring, but they have been draw-fests.
As to the question of whether Carlsen's non-participation devalues the championship, I think the answer is yes, a little bit. But it's still a world championship, it's still a match between two of the three strongest players in the world, and it's not the first nor will it be the last time the best player in the world is not simultaneously world champion. I'm still excited about it because it's match play at the highest level of chess, which is very rare these days. And since Carlsen had every opportunity to play and chose not to, I see no reason to put an asterisk next to the name of the winner in the annals of chess world champions. You can only beat the guy who shows up at the board!
I'm not going to update this thread after every game, especially not when there isn't much (or any) discussion. But I just wanted to say that since this thread was created, we had one rest day, then another pair of decisive games! Now we're at 6 games, 3-3 scoreline, and only two draws. This is turning into the most exciting and unpredictable world championship match in a long time.
Tomorrow is another rest day, then we'll have game 7 and officially reach the halfway point of the match.