Chess has a New World Champion: China's Ding Liren

The Guardian reports: The Magnus Carlsen era is over. Ding Liren becomes China's first world chess champion. The country now can boast the men's and women's titleholders: an unthinkable outcome during the Cultural Revolution when it was banned as a game of the decadent West. After 14 games which ended in a 7-7 draw, the championship was decided by four "rapid chess" games — with just 25 minutes on each players clock, and 10 seconds added after each move. Reuters reports that the competition was still tied after three games, but in the final match 30-year-old Ding capitalized on mistakes and "time management" issues by Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding's triumph means China holds both the men's and women's world titles, with current women's champion Ju Wenjun set to defend her title against compatriot Lei Tingjie in July... Ding had leveled the score in the regular portion of the match with a dramatic win in game 12, despite several critical moments — including a purported leak of his own preparation. The Chinese grandmaster takes the crown from five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who defeated Nepomniachtchi in 2021 but announced in July he would not defend the title again this year... [Ding] had only been invited to the tournament at the last minute to replace Russia's Sergey Karjakin, whom the international chess federation banned for his vocal support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Ding ranks third in the FIDE rating list behind Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi. It's the second straight world-championship defeat for Nepomniachtchi, the Guardian reports: "I guess I had every chance," the Russian world No 2 says. "I had so many promising positions and probably should have tried to finish everything in the classical portion. ... Once it went to a tiebreak, of course it's always some sort of lottery, especially after 14 games [of classical chess]. Probably my opponent made less mistakes, so that's it." Ding wins €1.1 million, The Guardian reports — also sharing this larger story: "I started to learn chess from four years old," Ding says. "I spent 26 years playing, analyzing, trying to improve my chess ability with many different ways, with different changing methods. with many new ways of training." He continues: "I think I did everything. Sometimes I thought I was addicted to chess, because sometimes without tournaments I was not so happy. Sometimes I struggled to find other hobbies to make me happy. This match reflects the deepness of my soul."

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