World Chess Championship: How Ding Liren got slice of luck — twice — on way to becoming world champion

World Chess Championship: Ding Liren became the 17th world champion in history after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana last year in a battle that went down to the wire and was decided in tension-soaked tiebreaks. It’s a crown he will defend against India’s Gukesh in a few days time. But if things had worked out even slightly differently, Ding Liren would not even have been on the chair to face Nepomniachtchi. China’s Ding Liren had fortune favour him twice on the way to earning a shot at the World Chess Championship. The first piece of good fortune came at the Candidates tournament in 2022. Ding Liren was not supposed to be in that edition of the Candidates, the elite eight-man battle to figure a challenger to the world champion. At that time, Magnus Carlsen was the world champion. But Ding Liren was extended an invite into the Madrid Candidates in 2022 because Russia’s Sergey Karjakin was banned by FIDE, the global governing body of chess, for his vocal support for Russian invasion of Ukraine. Under FIDE’s rules, Ding Liren was asked to play because he was the highest-rated player in FIDE’s May 2022 standard rating list. What had also worked out in Ding Liren’s favour was the fact that in the March and April 2022 phase, Ding Liren played 28 games in China which helped him gain rating points and become eligible to be the highest-rated player in FIDE’s May 2022 standard rating list. In that Candidates tournament in 2022, Ding got lucky again. That double round-robin tournament, happening at Madrid’s Palace of Santoña in June-July, was held in the shadow of uncertainty over Carlsen opting to forfeit his crown. Since there was no official confirmation from Carlsen, the eight players played with only one objective in mind: finishing first and earning a shot at Carlsen’s throne. The event ended with Nepomniachtchi ending first and earning his shot with Ding second. Then came the bombshell revelation: Carlsen chose to forfeit his crown. This meant Ding was again handed an invite to play in the World Chess Championship. The rest is history!

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World Chess Championship: How Ding Liren got slice of luck — twice — on way to becoming world champion