2024 World Chess Championship Updates : Gukesh vs Ding Liren in battle of ‘Indian tiger and Chinese dragon’

Five-time world champion Vishy Anand has had his fair share of setbacks from taking an opponent lightly.

That’s why he’s warned his protege Gukesh against taking Ding Liren lightly. In an interview with The Indian Express, he pointed out that plenty of top-level grandmasters like Hikaru Nakamura had read into Ding Liren’s form coming into the world chess championship. But Anand said that Gukesh needed to treat it as just “noise.”

“There’s no doubt that a year of bad form before an important match does matter. It does show something. You don’t know if this form will continue or if this is the moment that Ding Liren will break out of it. And you know that Ding Liren is a strong player anyway. Even Ding Liren in bad form. If this constant focus on his previous form lowers your guard even slightly, he’s strong enough to punish you,” Anand told The Indian Express.

Anand added: “A player should not be thinking about these things. He should go there and play the best move. Gukesh didn’t even ask me this question. He has concluded. ‘I will go there, make the best moves, and see what happens’”.

Here’s what the player rooms look like for Gukesh and Ding Liren. They’re pretty sparse. There are just two chairs, a table full of refreshments and a television set showing the live game.

Recently, in an interview with his own app, Take Take Take, former world champion Magnus Carlsen spoke about why Gukesh was a “mystery to him.”

“It’s weird to have someone who is so unbelievably much better at classical than he is (at faster formats),” Magnus Carlsen said while speaking of Gukesh’s ability to be better in the classical format than in the faster time controls of rapid or blitz. “When I talk to Gukesh after games, he’s considered stuff that I didn’t even consider! Like, ‘How did he have time for this?’ I think he just calculates nonstop. In classical chess, it works out quite well. But then you see in some games he makes extraordinary positional decisions because he doesn’t have the same filter,” added Magnus Carlsen.

The ratings certainly back Carlsen’s claims. The Indian teenager currently has a rating of 2783 in the classical format. That rating dips to 2654 in rapid and 2615 in blitz.

Recently, Gukesh himself spoke about how much he likes classical chess, even though players like Magnus Carlsen have weaned off it recently.

“Depends on personal opinion. I enjoy classical games more because they give me more time to play higher-quality games. Love to see games with higher quality. Rapid and blitz are more exciting for fans. For me, classical is no less exciting than rapid and blitz. If players want to play fighting chess, classical chess is super exciting,” said Gukesh. At the pre-event press conference.

Gukesh considers Viswanathan Anand his mentor. The five-time world champion has shaped his career in more ways than one. Anand suggested that Gukesh start working with Grzegorz Gajewski. Anand has also helped Gukesh with plenty of his chess-related requirements with the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy.

Recently, in an interview with The Indian Express, Anand spoke about Gukesh’s maturity!

“Gukesh has shown a certain amount of calm at several clutch moments. That certainly suggests that he is very mature for his age,” Vishy Anand told The Indian Express. “Having said that, everybody gets tested multiple times. And this will happen to him as well. There will be difficult moments. There’ll be setbacks. That’s quite normal. But during the Candidates, during the Olympiad, there are places where he showed that he’s fully there, focused, and can raise his game. At the Candidates, it was important to be as cool as he was and make some of the decisions he made. So that, again, it’s a promising sign, right? I mean, you do many things that other people have done before, but becoming a challenger at 18 sets you apart because it’s just not been done.”

There has been plenty of chatter about world champion Ding Liren’s issues and his form on the board. But the one person unaffected by that talk is Gukesh himself.

As mind guru Paddy Upton told The Indian Express recently, “We have had conversations around the concept of underestimating versus over-respecting your opponent. Gukesh is very well aware of some of the narratives that are out there around Ding’s form. And he’s seen it for himself. But to what degree do we overemphasise or over-respect the opponent versus under-respect them,” says Paddy Upton, who adds that he and Gukesh’s team have been helping the teenager train to face off against an “on-form Ding, who has found his mojo again”.

Gukesh also discussed this at the press conference before the World Chess Championship.

“For me, it’s pretty clear who I am facing. Ding Liren has been one of the best players in the world for over a decade. My job is pretty clear: go to every game as the best version of myself and play the best moves in the position. Play good chess, play in right spirits, if I am doing right things then no matter what version sits in front of me, his recent form dip or he’s at his best doesn’t matter to me. If I am doing the right things, I will have all the chances in the world,” said Gukesh.

Ahead of his first battle with Ding Liren, a remarkably calm Ding Liren attended a pre-event press conference, where he spoke of his readiness for the battle.

Anand Mahindra quoted Gukesh’s answer on X, in which he said, “I will …just go to every game as the best version of myself…” to praise the 18-year-old from Chennai.

“(This is) a philosophy that inspires all of us, not just a sportsperson. Thank you, Gukesh. An entire nation is cheering as you take on the World Champion,” tweeted Mahindra. 

Even while he was playing in the last World Chess Championship, Ding Liren had spoken out about being “depressed and broken.” After he got the world champion’s crown by prevailing over Ian Nepomniachtchi in a tense tiebreaker, he went on a long break and didn’t play in any competitive events. Early this year, when he started playing, multiple players like Hikaru Nakamura raised concerns about Ding Liren’s physical condition.

“I don’t know what’s going through Ding’s head. It’s a very, very strange situation to be in. You hear all the stories about Ding… But I hadn’t played him.

Now, seeing it in person, it is obvious he’s not the same person he was back when I played him in 2022. Everything, including the body language, doesn’t feel right. When you’ve played against these guys for so many years, you get used to certain things. I am very concerned about him for this upcoming World Championship match against Gukesh. He just doesn’t look right,” Nakamura had said at the Norway Chess tournament in June this year.

The young Indian challenger, Gukesh, was given a slight advantage as he will be starting the World Chess Championship’s game 1 with white pieces.

This means he has a slight advantage. to draw a parallel is equivalent to having to serve in tennis. Gukesh gets to set the pace for the World Chess Championship.

At the pre-event press conference, Ding Liren told the world that he had spent just three weeks—that’s right, just three weeks—preparing for the World Chess Championship.

“I started to prepare three weeks ago. My coach and seconds analysed the opening lines, and we played games. It’s a common routine for a World Chess Championship match. I have brought some seconds here to Singapore with me,” revealed Ding Liren on Saturday.

He did add that he had “spent more time than last time in preparing” referrign to the clash against Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana.

The World Chess Championship is a 14-game match between two players. One is usually the reigning champion, in this case, Ding Liren. The other is a challenger (in this case, Gukesh) who qualifies by winning the Candidates tournament.

The first player to reach 7.5 points will be the winner.

However, if both players are tied on points after 14 games, tiebreaks (matches in faster time control) will be played the next day to decide the winner.

Remember, the tiebreak is where Ding Liren defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi last year to become the 17th world champion.

The Gukesh versus Ding Liren battle promises to be an incredible moment in the history of chess. Thsi is the first time that both players are from Asia, and fittingly, the match is happening in Asia with Singapore playing hosts.

FIDE chief Arkady Dvorkovich billed the battle as a clash between the ‘Indian tiger and the Chinese dragon’.