World Chess Championship 2023

The World Chess Championship 2023 was a chess match between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren to determine the new World Chess Champion. The match took place in Astana, Kazakhstan, from 9 April to 30 April 2023, and was a best of 14 games, plus tiebreaks.

The previous champion Magnus Carlsen decided not to defend his title against Ian Nepomniachtchi, the winner of the Candidates Tournament 2022, stating he was "not motivated to play another match". As a result, Nepomniachtchi played against Ding Liren, who finished second in the Candidates Tournament.

After a 7–7 score tie in the classical time format — in which five of the first seven games were decisive — on 30 April, the match proceeded to tiebreaks with rapid time format. After draws in the first three games, Ding won with black in the final game to become the 17th World Chess Champion. Ding also became the first Chinese chess player to hold the title and, jointly with the 2020 women's world chess champion Ju Wenjun, made China the holder of both the open and women's world titles.

Ding gained a place in the Candidates only because Sergey Karjakin, whom he replaced, was sanctioned for supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ding had been unable to play throughout much of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, and had to play a number of hastily arranged matches to reach the minimum FIDE activity requirements to secure his place in the tournament. Nepomniachtchi won the Candidates, but Ding secured second place by beating Hikaru Nakamura in a must-win final-round game. Carlsen then relinquished his title, allowing Ding to play for the title despite not winning the Candidates. Nepomniachtchi took the lead three times during the match, but Ding evened the score each time, forcing a tiebreak. After three draws in the rapid tiebreaks, Ding won the fourth game to take the championship. Ding's path to winning the title was called "most improbable" by The Guardian.

Carlsen refuses to defend the title

The previous World Champion was Magnus Carlsen, who first won the title in 2013. To keep the title, Carlsen was periodically required to defend it in a championship match against a challenger, determined by a Candidates Tournament. Carlsen successfully defended the title in the world championship matches of 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021. In December 2021, soon after the 2021 championship (against Ian Nepomniachtchi), Carlsen stated that he lacked the motivation to defend his title again, unless the challenger was Alireza Firouzja. Firouzja had risen to number two in the world rankings in 2021 at age 18. In April 2022, Carlsen again publicly stated that he was unlikely to play in the next world championship, this time without mentioning any potential opponent.

The Candidates Tournament 2022 concluded in early July 2022, with Nepomniachtchi its winner. FIDE and Carlsen were already in talks regarding the world championship match and its format. On 20 July, Carlsen announced that he would not defend his title. Therefore, the 2023 world championship match was between Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, the winner and runner-up of the 2022 Candidates Tournament, respectively, and Carlsen lost the title when the match concluded. After Carlsen formally confirmed his decision in writing, FIDE officially invited Ding to participate in the 2023 world championship.

History of non-participation

Non-participation by the incumbent champion in the World Chess Championship is rare. The only two previous times in chess history where an undisputed world championship was played without the defending champion were in 1948 and 1975. The World Chess Championship 1948 was a five-player tournament held without the previous champion Alexander Alekhine, who had died in 1946. In 1975, incumbent champion Bobby Fischer declined to take part because of dissatisfaction with the format – the World Championship match was first-to-12.5-points, while Fischer wanted a first-to-ten-wins format. After FIDE declined to meet Fischer's demands, Fischer forfeited, and FIDE awarded the title to Fischer's challenger, Anatoly Karpov, the winner of the Candidates Final. No Championship match was held.

Non-participation by the incumbent champion in disputed World Chess Championships from 1993 to 2005 was more common. For the World Chess Championship 1993, incumbent Garry Kasparov and his challenger Nigel Short broke with FIDE and organized the championship on their own terms. FIDE disqualified them and set up its own FIDE World Chess Championship 1993 with runners-up Jan Timman and Anatoly Karpov. This set up the 13-year period of split World Champion title 1993–2006. In the sub-period of 1999–2004, the FIDE Championship was held as a knockout tournament with 100–128 candidates: here Karpov refused to participate in 1999 due to the lack of privileges for him as incumbent champion, and 2002 FIDE champion Ruslan Ponomariov refused to defend his title in 2004 to protest against the preponderant role FIDE granted Kasparov in the re-unification process.

Candidates Tournament 2022

The challengers were Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren, who qualified as the winner and runner-up, respectively, in the Candidates Tournament 2022 in Madrid, Spain, which began on June 16 and ended on July 5, 2022. Ding qualified for the Candidates Tournament 2022 through his rating, as a replacement for Sergey Karjakin, who had been barred from playing by FIDE due to his comments supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nepomniachtchi had challenged world champion Carlsen in the previous championship in 2021.

The participants were:

Results

As world champion Carlsen announced after the tournament that he would not defend the world title, both first and second place advanced to the 2023 title match.

Tie-breakers for first place: (1) results in tie-break games for first place;

Tie breakers for non-first place: (1) results in tie-break games for first place, if any; (2) Sonneborn–Berger score (SB); (3) total number of wins; (4) head-to-head score among tied players; (5) drawing of lots.

Note: Numbers in the crosstable in a white background indicate the result playing the respective opponent with the white pieces (black pieces if on a black background). This does not give information which of the two games was played in the first half of the tournament, and which in the second.

Championship match

Organization

The match took place in Astana, Kazakhstan, from 9 April to 30 April 2023 at the St Regis Astana Hotel.

The prize fund was €2 million. It would have been split 60% vs 40% between the winner and the runner-up had either player scored 7½ or more points in the classical portion of the match. As the match was tied after 14 classical games, the prize fund was split 55% vs 45% in favor of the winner of the tiebreak. The main sponsor for the event was Freedom Holding Corp., a Kazakhstan-based Russian investment company with ties to the Central Asian region, with chess training app Chessable, mining company LLP Tioline, and the Kazakhstan Chess Federation also sponsoring the event.

The chief arbiter was Nebojša Baralić from Serbia, while the deputy arbiter was Gerhard Bertagnolli from Italy.

The first move of each classical game was ceremonially performed by guests invited by the organisers:

Match regulations

The time control for each game in the classical portion of the match was 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves, and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting with move 61.

The match was best of 14 games; a score of at least 7½ would win the world championship. Due to the score being equal after 14 games, tiebreak games with faster time controls were played:

• A match consisting of 4 rapid games with 25 minutes per side and a 10-second increment starting with move 1 will be played. If a player scores 2½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score had been equal after the rapid portion, a mini-match of two blitz games would have been played, with a time control of 5 minutes per side and a 3-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship. If the blitz mini-match was tied, another mini-match with the same conditions would be played to decide the winner of the championship. A drawing of lots would take place before each mini-match to decide which player plays with the white pieces.
• If both blitz mini-matches were tied, a single blitz game with a time control of 3 minutes per side and a 2-second increment starting with move 1 would be played, and the winner would win the championship. A drawing of lots would decide which player plays with the white pieces. If this game was drawn, another blitz game with reversed colours would be played with the same time control, and the winner would win the championship. This process would be repeated until either player wins a game.

Players were not allowed to agree to a draw before Black's 40th move. A draw claim before then was only permitted if a threefold repetition or stalemate has occurred.