Ding Liren

Ding Liren (born October 24, 1992, Wenzhou, China) is a Chinese chess player who was the world chess champion from 2023 to 2024.

Ding learned chess at the age of four. His hometown, Wenzhou, is known in China for its strong chess culture, and as a child Ding studied under the same coaches that taught women’s world champion Zhu Chen. He quickly proved himself to be an excellent chess player. He finished second in the boys under-10 division at the 2003 Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) World Youth Chess Championship, and he also finished second at the 2004 World Youth Championship in the boys under-12 division.

Ding’s victory at the 2009 Chinese championship is regarded as his breakout tournament. He was one of the lowest rated players and yet was undefeated even against grandmasters. However, how he clinched the victory proved controversial. In the final round, Ding was half a point behind Wang Hao, whom he had defeated earlier in the tournament. FIDE, chess’s international governing body, had recently instituted a zero tolerance policy indicating that players who showed up late to a game would forfeit it. Ding showed up on time for his game against Zhou Jianchou; Zhou did not. Wang lost his last game, and Zhou’s forfeit was enough to give Ding the championship. Ding’s victory fulfilled the requirements to become a grandmaster. At the age of 16, he was the youngest person to win the Chinese national title. He won the title again in 2011 and 2012.

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In 2017 Ding placed second at the FIDE World Cup, which earned him a spot in the 2018 Candidates Tournament, the winner of which got the right to take on reigning chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, but he came in fourth at that tournament. Ding was known particularly for his skill in endgames, which helped him earn the then longest undefeated streak in high-level chess. He drew or won 100 games from August 2017 to November 2018. (This streak was surpassed by Carlsen in 2020, with a 125-game undefeated streak.)

At the 2018 Chess Olympiad, China won the gold, and Ding won the individual gold medal. One of his strongest tournament showings was at the 2019 Sinquefield Cup, which featured twelve of the world’s top players. Ding tied with Carlsen and then beat him in the blitz tiebreaker games, thereby becoming the first player to beat the dominant Carlsen in tiebreakers since 2007.

In 2019 Ding again came in second at the FIDE World Cup, securing him a spot at the 2020 Candidates Tournament. That competition began in March 2020, was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and resumed in April 2021. Ding placed fifth.

Ding took an unusual path to the world chess championship. He had not been one of the eight players chosen to compete in the Candidates Tournament in 2022 for the right to take on Carlsen. However, one of the eight who had been chosen, Sergey Karjakin of Russia, was banned from the tournament by FIDE for his comments in favour of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Consequently, the next highest rated player on the May 2022 ratings list would be invited by FIDE to the Candidates Tournament to take Karjakin’s place. That player would have to have played 30 games in the past year. Because chess in China had been severely curtailed by the pandemic, Ding had played only 4 games. The Chinese Chess Association quickly organized three events consisting of 28 games over a period of 29 days in March and April 2022. Ding won 13 games, drew the rest, and actually moved from third to second, after Carlsen, in the FIDE ratings.

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At the Candidates Tournament, Ding came in second place to Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia. However, after that competition, Carlsen announced that he would not defend his title, and thus Ding would play Nepomniachtchi at the World Championship in 2023. In that competition Nepomniachtchi was tied with Ding after 14 games. A series of four rapid tiebreaker games followed. Ding and Nepomniachtchi drew the first three games. The fourth game seemed headed for another draw, which would force tiebreakers played in the even faster blitz format, but Ding, using his skill in endgames, pinned his rook to his king, an unconventional move that led to the crumbling of Nepomniachtchi’s position. With Ding’s victory, both the men’s and women’s world champions were Chinese, Ju Wenjun having won the women’s title in 2018.

After winning the championship, Ding took nine months off from chess. When he returned, he played shockingly poorly for a world champion. He did not win any games at the 2024 Chess Olympiad. On the eve of the World Championship in 2024 against challenger Gukesh Dommaraju of India, he had even fallen to number 21 in the world. Ding said he had been struggling with his mental health and said he did not know if he would ever return to his previous form. Ding’s slump was so deep that when he won the first game of the Championship, it was his first win in 304 days.

Although Ding was regarded as the underdog, he and Gukesh were evenly matched through the tournament. Until the final game, each won two games and tied the rest, but toward the end of the final game Ding made a mistake and trapped his bishop, giving Gukesh the victory and the championship.