Ian Nepomniachtchi nervously spins the black pawn in his hand. The fourth rapid game of the World Chess Championship match is approaching the final. Things are going badly for Jan: two black pawns rush to his front row. Time is running out and the opponent, Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren, responds almost instantly to his moves, despite having forty seconds more on his watch. Nepomniachtchi looks around the room, gets nervous, scatters the black figures that are holding on to his right hand. After three seconds, he will extend this hand to the opponent to congratulate him, then get up from his chair and leave the stage. Dean stays at the table. It seems that he does not have the strength to get up – only to cover his forehead and eyes with his hand and again shake hands with the departing Nepomniachtchi.
When, after ten seconds, however, he gets up from his seat, no joy can be read on his face, only deadly fatigue. These were the first moments of the new king of chess – the seventeenth world champion Ding Liren.
He was not supposed to take part in this match in the summer of 2022 – many remember that. But few people remember that in the tournament of contenders for the chess crown, Dean was not supposed to play and only got there because the Russian Sergey Karyakin was disqualified. And few could predict that the 30-year-old Chinese would leave behind Americans Nakamura and Caruana, Azerbaijani Radjabov and 19-year-old French golden boy Firouzja. But what would this second place be for? After all, only the winner, Ian Nepomniachtchi, was allowed to fight Magnus Carlsen for the title.
But shortly after the end of the Candidates Tournament, Carlsen refused to defend the title: he did not find the motivation to do so. As per the rules, Dean took his place.
It was a very tough game. Of course, there has never been an easy fight for the World Chess Championship title. But in the early games, it seemed like Dean wouldn’t even crumble as a chess player, but as a person: it was physically difficult for him to deal with this tension. He continued to go to the bathroom while Nepomniachtchi thought about it as he walked. He was cold, he was entangled with anxiety, tormented by unpleasant memories of the past. The body and mind of the Chinese worked to the limit, especially since in the first half of the game he lost three times in the long run. The second loss turned out to be such that it could break anyone: Dean just wasted time, unable to find a move.
Ding Liren in the first seconds after winning the World Championship match
Photo source: Chess.com broadcast screenshot
He will tell you how he managed to cope with this. There have been six draws in the last seven games, and for the most part these are games in which the Russian grandmaster has had more chances. But the Chinese, despite the obvious psychological exhaustion, were able to neutralize this advantage, and even win a duel.
In the tiebreak, in rapid chess, Nepomniachtchi again had an advantage in the first, second and third game – and yet time and time again he made mistakes and let Dean slip away. The fourth game was also crawling towards a draw, Jan was already repeating moves, tacitly offering a draw. But then the Chinese took the risk, and Nepomniachtchi didn’t read the danger, he made a mistake – and Dean was cold-blooded. And won.
Will Dean become Caliph for a championship term, or will he be at the top for a long time? Nepomniachtchi, who lost the second game in a row, will he be able to turn around and go back in this direction? Will Carlsen fight for the championship again? In the world of chess, after this victory, there was even more intrigue.
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