Indian Dommaraju Gukesh is the new chess world champion. In the title duel on Sentosa Island, which is part of Singapore, he won the 14th game against title defender Ding Liren with the white pieces and thus crowned himself the youngest world champion of all time. Initially, everything seemed to be heading for a draw, but then the decisive blunder by the Chinese player occurred in the extended endgame.
In the normal games, the 32-year-old Ding and his 18-year-old Indian challenger had delivered an unexpectedly close duel since November 25. Ding was the clear underdog in the match, as he had fallen into a form slump after his title win last year and could hardly win any games anymore. Gukesh, on the other hand, had qualified for the WM with a strong performance at the candidate tournament in Toronto in April 2024.
In Singapore, it was actually Ding who won the first game with black, but the Indian could level the score in the third game with white. Then came seven consecutive draws, during which a clear pattern emerged: Ding would regularly be less well-prepared, get into time trouble early on, and mainly aim for a draw. Gukesh, however, could not capitalize on the advantageous positions he had several times – also because Ding under time pressure regularly found the best defensive moves.
The seemingly decisive game was the 11th, in which Gukesh won again with white. Ding came back the next day, showing his old class under pressure, leaving the challenger with no chance. In Gukesh’s last game with white on Wednesday, the Indian was again in a good position. In the middle of the game, there was a situation where Ding could only avert a loss with a single possible move – and he found it. Thus, the score was tied at 6.5:6.5 going into the last duel. Seven and a half points were needed for victory – with a 7:7 score, it would have gone to a tiebreak in rapid and possibly blitz chess on Friday.