There are just 50 days to go for the FIDE World Championship 2024, where India's D Gukesh will fight to take world champion Ding Liren's crown away from him. The Indian is aiming to become the youngest world champion ever and is riding the crest of a wave after his outstanding performance recently helped India secure a gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in Budapest.
Even as Gukesh has been in the form of his life, Ding has not quite been in the best of it. Here's how things stack up with a little less than two months to go before the two face off in Singapore from November 25 onwards.
Gukesh's recent form
If this World Championship were to be decided just on form, then there is barely a player in the world who gets close to Gukesh's. He won nine matches out of 10 at the Olympiad last month, including a superb victory over USA's Fabiano Caruana.
In addition to helping India win their first-ever Olympiad gold, Gukesh also became the world no.5, with his live rating currently at 2794.1. His performances at the Olympiad was rated at 3056 ELO, which made it one of the greatest individual performances in any chess tournament ever played.
Ding's recent form
In a word, poor. He hasn't won a match in the classical format since the Tata Steel Masters in January, when he beat Dutchman Max Warmerdam. Incidentally though, Ding did beat Gukesh at that same tournament, after which they faced each other in the Sinquefield Cup, where they played out a draw.
Ding represented China at the recent Olympiad but drew seven and lost one of the eight games that he played. In the tie between China and India, Ding didn't face off against Gukesh on board 1, leaving that up to Wei Yi, who gave Gukesh a tough match before the Indian closed it out in what has been regarded as one of the great endgames played.
So, is this match a foregone conclusion?
As much as it does seem that way right now, it is far from it. Form points in only one direction, but we have not yet seen a big factor -- how will the teenager Gukesh handle the pressure of being in a world championship match? He is playing the better chess at the moment but so was Ian Nepomniachtchi in the build-up to last year's world championship match, which Ding eventually won in sensational circumstances -- in a match that required four tie-breaks after the 14 classical matches weren't enough to decide a winner.
���� Singapore will host the 2024 FIDE World Championship Match ♟️ ��
⚔️ The defending World Champion, ���� Ding Liren, will battle it out against the Challenger, ���� Gukesh D. The Match, which boasts a sensational prize fund of �� 2.5 million USD, is set to take place between ��️... pic.twitter.com/2fL93Gpq6J
- International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 1, 2024
In fact, Ding even handled a mid-tournament crisis, when it emerged that his preparation was leaked. It came out on the online platform Reddit that Ding's "anonymous" pre-match training games had been discovered. He went on to say that he had to develop completely new ideas following the leak.
While Ding has gone through the rigours of the world championship last year and also dealt with setbacks on the move, this is uncharted territory for Gukesh. One can be certain that his preparation will be on point, and he is currently playing a very high level of chess. But pressure can do funny things to even the most elite athletes. Ding has thrived under it before, so even though he has gone on record to say that Gukesh is the favourite for the title, those words mean little. Nepomniachtchi was the favourite for the title last year too. The Russian won three of first seven matches too and sat pretty with a 4.5-2.5 lead at the halfway mark.
So, while all the signs point to Gukesh and his form, don't write Ding off just yet. Even with his struggles both on and off the board since taking the longest possible route to becoming world champion last year, he will not be the pushover that the form guide might show him to be.
What happens between now and the start of the match?
Both Gukesh and Ding are already in preparation mode for the match, with neither taking part in the ongoing Global Chess League. It is therefore very likely that there wouldn't be any public appearances or words from either player before they reach Singapore in the week prior to the match, which begins on November 25.
Generally, the two players at world championships have a team of 'seconds' to support them with their preparation. Gukesh's second during the Candidates tournament was Polish Grandmaster Grzegorz Gajewski, who has worked with some of India's top players at the WestBridge Anand Chess Academy (WACA) for the last few years. Gajewski was also Viswanathan Anand's second at the 2014 World Championship.
Gukesh had traveled to the Candidates tournament in Toronto earlier this year with just his father and Gajeswki in his camp, but it is very likely that his team in Singapore would be a larger one.
However, the identity of the seconds and other members of a player's team at World Championships are generally well-guarded secrets. Ding's second Richard Rapport told the Indian Express recently that he wasn't willing to divulge details either on Ding's preparations or indeed on whether he would part of the Chinese's entourage.