The chess world got a Chinese king

Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi lost his second match for the world chess title. This time, it was not to renounce the title of the undisputed frontman in the current century, Magnus Carlsen, to whom he lost in 2021 in Dubai, but to Ding Liren, who seemed almost an accidental contender. The victory in the duel, which took place in Astana, was ensured by the stubbornness of the Chinese, which allowed him to win back three times in the classical part, and the courage that brought him success in the fourth game of the tie-break.

The match that ended on Sunday in Astana will hardly ever be cited as an example of a standard in terms of the class of play at a level above which there is nothing in chess. Rather, on the contrary: he showed that championship fights can be filled to the brim with errors and breakdowns, that their participants may turn out to be completely different from almost fail-safe computer programs that have taken on human form.

But he will certainly go down in history – as perhaps the sharpest and most dramatic among all matches for a valuable title.

And as the most athletic, or something, in the sense that, as often happens in other sports, he didn’t give a damn about logic – one of the main seemingly chess components, which triumphed in one way or another in almost all previous battles for the title. This applies to all its aspects – and the course of the struggle, in which, no matter how hard you try, it was impossible to find more or less stable trends, and of course, its outcome.

Logic insisted that the Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, who had already played one such match, should become the 17th world champion. In 2021, he lost with a crushing score in Dubai to the undisputed frontman of chess of the current century, Magnus Carlsen. But last summer, the Norwegian refused the title, and Nepomniachtchi, who won candidate tournaments by a large margin and gained the experience necessary to climb to the top, seemed to be the undisputed leader among Carlsen’s pursuers. However, the 17th world champion was his opponent, who gave China another high-profile sports breakthrough. In women’s chess, the dominance of this country, now close to absolute, has long since become a familiar thing. But in men’s chess she still hasn’t come close to the title.

And it was brought to China by a 30-year-old grandmaster, who, before the Astana match, was drawn to be called almost an accidental challenger. He got the status thanks to Carlsen’s demarche, otherwise the second place at last year’s Candidates’ Tournament in Madrid, well behind Nepomniachtchi, would not have been fundamentally different from the eighth place. Liren hasn’t made any real headway in years.

Strictly speaking, in the match itself, Ding Liren did not play in such a way as to put him on a par with 16 previous world champions: it was possible without fear to run into smirks of people well versed in chess and their legends.

To a large extent, the triumph of the Chinese is the merit of the equally flawed Ian Nepomniachtchi.

But something makes it still very, very well-deserved, even remarkable by any standards, including by the standards of the main legends.

Unprecedented was Ding Liren’s stubbornness in the classical part of the match. At his not so long – 14 games – distance, he three times found himself in the role of catching up and three times recouped. For the third time, two rounds before the finish line, at the moment when Nepomniachtchi seemed to finally have gained the reliability necessary to keep the advantage.

And the denouement of the duel was unprecedented. The first three games of the tie-break ended in draws. The grandmasters played the fourth – again in rapid chess. If it had also turned into a draw, then the tie-break would have continued with blitz. And everything went to the fact that it could not be avoided.

Ian Nepomniachtchi had white pieces, and he achieved a position where the world is virtually inevitable: the black king cannot dodge the harassment of the queen.

And, in fact, why dodge, if the loss does not threaten the one to whom it belongs anyway?

The opponents have already repeated the moves. And the commentators of the match, that is, well-known grandmasters, were already savoring the upcoming blitz. Some of them were speechless when they saw that instead of fixing a draw with a new repetition of the king’s maneuver, Ding Liren blocked the check with the rook, transferring it to g6 and substituting it for an unpleasant, seemingly almost deadly pin.

It was some kind of fantastic courage, considering the price of the party, the fact that the Chinese had about a minute left on the clock.

But he still wanted to play to win!

And soon the same commentators, who suspected that Ding Liren had got into a noose with the move of the rook, stated with delight that he had an excellent position: two pawns were tearing to queens, and the pieces of Yang Nepomniachtchi were chained hand and foot. And it only remained to find out whether the Chinese would be able to realize his superiority under time pressure. Smog. When it was most needed, when the most valuable title was at arm’s length, Ding Liren transformed into such a chess player, whose name is definitely not ashamed to be mentioned along with the names of the greatest of the greats. And after a few minutes, apparently, he was happy to read congratulations on his smartphone from Magnus Carlsen, his predecessor, on the admission to the club of “immortals”.

Alexey Dospekhov