Ding Liren: A story about not giving up

Lessons for life: Never give up

We have a new world chess champion!

However, their is something very remarkable about Ding Liren’s journey.

In chess, to play for the world championship, one needs to first win a tournament called candidates. The participants of this tournament are decided by the chess governing body, FIDE. Ding was just one shy of getting a spot in the candidates.

However, a player in the candidates, Karjakin was banned for his statements on the Russia-Ukrine War.

Originally, no player would have qualified solely by their rating. However, following the ban of Karjakin, the rules stated the replacement would be the highest rated player who had not already qualified, based on the May 2022 rating list, with a requirement of having played at least 30 officially rated games between June 2021 and May 2022.

In the April 2022 rating list, the highest rated player (who was not world champion or already qualified) was Ding Liren with a rating of 2799. However Ding had only played 4 of the required 30 rated games due to his inability to travel to tournaments outside China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ding therefore needed to play at least 26 rated games in the next 30 days, which would be incorporated into the May 2022 rating list. He also needed to maintain his rating lead over the next highest non-qualifier.

In Ding’s case, that meant he had 30 days to play 26 classical games. Now classical game refers to any chess game with a time control of greater than 2 hours. And to maintain the rating lead, he had to play these matches against other opponents of his level. Simply speaking, this is a extremely difficult and excruciating task at the master level and doing it would mean Ding would play the candidates already burnt out.

But that didn’t stop him, he played the 26 required games and entered the candidates. However, as expected, he was not well rested and candidates was going poorly for him. He had -1 points by the 8th round. The tournament has 14 rounds and to play for the world championship, he needed to win atleast 4 out of the next six games to even stand a chance. Remember, at the masters level of chess, descive results are very rare and most games end in draw.

But Ding, was up for the challenge. He defeated Duda, Rapport, Caruana and Nakamura but alas, he was one short. He came second.

Then Magnus decided to not defend his title and suddently, it was Ding vs Nepo for the world championship. At no point during this tournament, Ding was ahead. He was trailing till round 12 and was on the losing side. To make matter’s worse, his prep got leaked, which at this level of the game is like telling your opponent exactly which weapons you have.

Yet, despite the fact Ding had to play an unpreped opening. Despite the fact that he was down most of the game, he decided to play on. And Nepo out of pure nerves, blundered. This equalized the score.

After drawing the next two games, they headed in the tie breaks.

The first three matches were drawn. In the fourth and final game of the tie breaks, Nepo offered a draw at move 46. And Ding refused. He played on for a win. Nepo was so surprised that he made severe mistakes in the next two moves and by move 68 we had a new world champion.

People say that Ding Liren is lucky to become the 17th World Champion, but the truth is held in two old adages: Fortune favors the bold and Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.

Ding didn’t complain that he had to play 26 games in 30 days, that he was burnt out during the candidates, that his prep was leaked during the world championship. He just played on.