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CHESS WORLD CHAMPIONS  2023 - 

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17. DING LIREN (Ch) (1992 - )

DING LIREN

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Ding Liren (Chinese: 丁立人; pinyin: Dīng Lìrén; born 24 October 1992) is a Chinese chess grandmaster and the reigning World Chess Champion. He is the highest-rated Chinese chess player in history and also a three-time Chinese Chess Champion. He was the winner of the 2019 Grand Chess Tour, beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the finals and winning the 2019 Sinquefield Cup, as the first player since 2007 to beat Magnus Carlsen in a playoff.
Ding is the first Chinese player ever to play in a Candidates Tournament and pass the 2800 Elo mark on the FIDE world rankings
In July 2016, with a Blitz rating of 2875, he was the highest rated Blitz player in the world.

Ding was undefeated in classical chess from August 2017 to November 2018, recording 29 victories and 71 draws. This 100-game unbeaten streak was the longest in top-level chess history, until Carlsen surpassed it in 2019. Ding has for a long periode been No. 3 in classical chess, behind only Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi, bur won the World Chess Championship 2023 over Nepomniachtchi (having qualified as Carlsen declined to defend his title, and by coming in second to Nepomniachtchi in the Candidates Tournament 2022), becoming the first Chinese player to hold the title.

Early life and education

Ding was born in Wenzhou, China, and started learning chess when he was four years old. He attended Wenzhou Zhouyuan Elementary School, and is a graduate of Zhejiang Wenzhou High School and Peking University Law School.
 

Chess career

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Ding is a three-time Chinese Chess Champion (2009, 2011, 2012) and has represented China at all four Chess Olympiads from 2012 to 2018, winning team gold medals in 2014 and 2018, and individual bronze and gold medals in 2014 and 2018, respectively. He also won team gold and individual silver at the World Team Championships in 2015.

In August 2015, he became the first Chinese player after Wang Yue to break into the top 10 of the FIDE world rankings. In July 2016, with a Blitz rating of 2875, he was the highest-rated Blitz player in the world.

In September 2017, he became the first Chinese player to qualify for a Candidates Tournament, the penultimate stage in the World Championship. At the Candidates Tournament 2018, he placed 4th with 1 win and 13 draws, the only candidate without a loss at the event.

In September 2018, Ding became the first Chinese player to pass the 2800 Elo mark on the FIDE world rankings, and in November he reached a rating of 2816, the joint-tenth highest rating in history.

In August 2019, he won the Sinquefield Cup, with 2 wins and 9 draws, beating reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the playoffs.

In October of the same year, Ding qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2020–21 by finishing 2nd place in the World Cup for the second time in a row. He had a poor start to the Candidates tournament, however, and finished in a tie for 5th and 6th.

Along with Magnus Carlsen, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Levon Aronian, he was a 2019 Grand Chess Tour finalist. Ding went on to win the Grand Chess Tour final, beating Aronian in the semifinals and Vachier-Lagrave in the finals.
 

Candidate

After Sergey Karjakin was disqualified from the Candidates Tournament 2022, Ding was the highest player on the ratings list who was not already qualified.

Ding had been unable to travel to tournaments outside China during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was thus short of the minimum games requirement for qualification, but the Chinese Chess Association organized three different rated events at short notice to allow him to qualify.

At the Candidates Tournament, Ding achieved second place, recovering from a slow start to end up with 4 wins, 8 draws, and 2 losses. As reigning World champion Magnus Carlsen declined to defend his title against Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of the 2022 Candidates, Ding's second place spot qualified him to play Nepomniachtchi in the World Chess Championship 2023 instead.

In 2023, he played at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2023, where he lost to Richárd Rapport, R Praggnanandhaa, and Anish Giri; these losses dropped his rating below 2800, leaving only Magnus Carlsen to retain a rating above 2800.
 

2023 FIDE World Chess Championship

Following his success in the Candidates, Ding won the 2023 World Championship match to become the first Chinese player to ever hold the title of World Chess Champion. He defeated Nepomniachtchi in a tie-break, winning in the 4th game as black in rapid time control.

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Results

References

  1. Administrator. "FIDE Title Applications (GM, IM, WGM, WIM, IA, FA, IO)". "Ding Liren Wins 2019 Grand Chess Tour".

  2. Doggers (PeterDoggers), Peter. "Ding Beats Carlsen In Playoff To Win Sinquefield Cup". Chess.com.

  3. "Ding Liren: Quiet Assassin". chess24.com. 23 May 2020.

  4. Jump up to:a b "Search results: July 2016". FIDE. Retrieved 1 December 2018.

  5. Peterson, Macauley (11 November 2018). "Ding defeated! Tiviakov celebrates!". ChessBase.

  6. Overvik, Jostein; Strøm, Ole Kristian (21 October 2019). "Magnus Carlsen satte verdensrekord: 101 partier uten tap". Verdens Gang (in Norwegian).

  7. "Ding Liren makes history, becoming World Champion". www.fide.com. Retrieved 1 May 2023.

  8. "温州市中通国际学校". ztxx.lwedu.cn. "新闻中心 – 温州网". news.66wz.com.

  9. "浙江省温州中学 今日温中 我校高三学生丁立人与国际象棋特级大师卜祥志温州论剑". wzms.wzer.net.

  10. "PKU alumnus Ding Liren becomes the Runner-Up in the Individual Events of 2017 Chess World Cup". Peking University. 2 November 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2020.

  11. "Introducing Candidates: Ding Liren". fide.com. 14 March 2020. Retrieved 24 July 2020.

  12. "Ding Liren". gashimovchess.com. Retrieved 1 May 2023.

  13. "Ding Liren world no. 2 on May 2022 FIDE rating list". chess24.com. Retrieved 4 June 2022.

  14. Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin banned from chess for 6 months over Ukraine stance, chess24, 21 March 2022

  15. Barden, Leonard (25 March 2022). "Chess: China's Ding Liren could make unlikely late bid for Candidates place". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 March 2022.

  16. Ding Liren Back To World #2, Plans To Reach 30 Rated Games Needed For Candidates, chess.com, 28 March 2022

  17. Doggers, Peter (20 July 2022). "BREAKING: Carlsen Not To Defend World Title". Chess.com. Retrieved 20 July 2022.

  18. Graham, Bryan Armen (30 April 2023). "Ding Liren defeats Ian Nepomniachtchi to win World Chess Championship – live". the Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 April 2023.

  19. "World Youth Chess Championships 2002 :: Chess.GR". Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 20 June 2009.

  20. "Chess.GR :: World Youth Chess Championships 2004".

  21. "Chinese Championship – a pictorial review". 14 June 2009.

  22. Titles approved at the 80th FIDE Congress". FIDE. 19 October 2009. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 10 July 2019.

  23. "Chinese Championship (2011)". www.chessgames.com.

  24. Crowther, Mark (21 September 2011). "The Week in Chess: FIDE World Cup Khanty-Mansiysk 2011". London Chess Center. Retrieved 14 November 2011.

  25. "Chinese Chess Championship (2012)". www.chessgames.com.

  26. "- Vachier-Lagrave tops SPICE Cup". 22 October 2012.

  27. "Aronian and Gelfand win Alekhine Memorial 2013". ChessBase News. 1 May 2013. Archived from the original on 15 June 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2013.

  28. (PeterDoggers), Peter Doggers. "Convincing Win For Ding Liren In Shenzhen - Chess.com". Chess.com. Retrieved 22 December 2017.

  29. "Ding Liren Wins Moscow Grand Prix". FIDE. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 13 October 2017.

  30. "World Championship Candidates (2018)". Retrieved 28 March 2018.

  31. Staff writer(s) (28 April 2018). "Results: Cross Table". Shamkir Chess.

  32. "St. Louis Rapid & Blitz Winners & Losers". chess24. Retrieved 15 August 2019.

  33. "Results And Standings – 2019 Grand Chess Tour". Grand Chess Tour. Retrieved 29 August 2019.

  34. "2019 Tour Standings – 2019 Grand Chess Tour". Grand Chess Tour. Retrieved 8 December 2019.

  35. "World Championship Candidates 2020/21". chessgames.com. Retrieved 16 November 2021.

  36. "Goldmoney Asian Rapid (2021)". chessgames.com. Retrieved 16 November 2021.

  37. Doggers (PeterDoggers), Peter. "Ding Liren Wins 2022 Chessable Masters". Chess.com. Retrieved 25 July 2022.
     

Further reading

External links

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