Ding Liren, Accused of Deliberately Losing to D Gukesh, Opens Up for World Chess Championship Defeat

Chinese grandmaster Ding Liren has opened up about his loss to India’s D Gukesh at the 2024 World Chess Championship in Singapore last week. Ding, who was the defending champion, made a costly mistake in the deciding game of 14, allowing Gukesh to become the youngest ever world champion. After his defeat to Gukesh, Ding was accused of deliberately losing the match by the head of the Russian Chess Federation Andrei Filatov. Russian news agency TASS quoted Filatov as asking the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to open an investigation and examine the outcome.

Former world champions Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik had also questioned the quality of chess exhibited throughout the course of the 14 matches, Ding and Gukesh.

Amid the criticism, Ding has defended himself and Gukesh, insisting that the quality of the games was not that low.

“Yes, I did my best in the match and you could see my time consumption. I spent a lot of time in the opening phase because I was not familiar with the position. I was trying to figure out what was going on. Or what is the idea behind the news or how I play my pieces And sometimes I did a good job and sometimes I didn’t find a clear way to develop ChessBase India.

“But in every match his (Gukesh) time would eventually catch up with my time after some long deliberation from him. So I can say that I played some quality moves as I spent a lot of time. The quality of the game was not so low, even when I was low on time, I also played some good moves with less time,” he added.

Meanwhile, Gukesh secured the required 7.5 points to 6.5 from his Chinese rival after winning the 14th and final classical time control game of the match that mostly looked headed for a draw. As the winner, he will walk away with a whopping USD 1.3 million (approx. Rs 11.03 crore) from the prize purse of 2.5 million.