World Chess Championship 2024

The World Chess Championship 2024 was a chess match between the reigning world champion Ding Liren and the challenger Gukesh Dommaraju to determine the World Chess Champion. The match took place between 25 November and 12 December 2024 in Singapore. It was played to a best of 14 games, with tiebreaks if required. The match was won by Gukesh 7½–6½ after 14 games. The win made Gukesh, at age 18, the youngest undisputed open-category world champion.

Ding Liren won the 2023 World Chess Championship by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi, after reigning champion Magnus Carlsen declined to defend his title. Gukesh won the eight-player Candidates Tournament held in April 2024 to win the right to challenge Ding for the World Championship. Before the start of the match, Gukesh was ranked fifth in the FIDE rankings with an Elo rating of 2783, while Ding was ranked 23rd with an Elo rating of 2727.

Ding won two games and Gukesh won three. The 14th and final game ended with Gukesh winning the game and match with the black pieces after Ding resigned following a blunder that allowed Gukesh to simplify the position to a winning king and pawn versus king endgame.

Defending champion

Ding Liren became World Chess Champion in April 2023, after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 championship match; Ding had finished second to Nepomniachtchi in the Candidates Tournament 2022, but when reigning champion Magnus Carlsen chose not to defend his title, Ding replaced Carlsen in the 2023 match. After acquiring the title, Ding did not appear in professional tournaments for months, an absence which Ding later revealed in interviews to be due to fatigue and depression. Ding withdrew from tournaments including the 2023 Asian Games and did not enter the first four events of the 2024 Grand Chess Tour. He returned to classical chess in January 2024 at the 2024 Tata Steel Chess Tournament and announced that he still intended to defend his world champion title.

Ding's return to chess introduced a rough stretch of form, with a set of poor performances at the 2024 Tata Steel Masters, Norway Chess, and the Grenke Chess Classic. Ding's rating fell from 2788 (at the time of the World Chess Championship 2023) to 2728, while his world ranking fell from world number 3 to world number 23. His poor results led several chess grandmasters to express concern about Ding's overall ability to defend his world championship title, notably Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. However, while acknowledging Ding's weakened physical condition during the 2024 Sinquefield Cup, Anish Giri highlighted Ding's improved chess level during the first half of the tournament. Ding's opponent in the 2023 match, Ian Nepomniachtchi, also remarked on Caruana's podcast that Ding would be a clear favorite if he were in prime form.

Reflecting on his poor form in an interview during the 45th Chess Olympiad, Ding admitted that Gukesh is "playing extremely well in this tournament. Maybe he is a favorite in the World Championship Match. He also has a higher rating than me". Ding also remarked "[I have] dropped a lot since last year, but I will fight my best to try to overcome the rating difference".

Candidates Tournament

The challenger, Gukesh Dommaraju, qualified by winning the Candidates Tournament 2024 in Toronto, Canada, which was an eight-player double round-robin tournament. It took place from April 3 to April 22, 2024. Fabiano Caruana won the 2023 FIDE Circuit, but had already qualified for the Candidates through the Chess World Cup 2023. Hence, Gukesh qualified for the Candidates via the FIDE Circuit, after overtaking Anish Giri with a win at the Chennai Grand Masters tournament.

The eight players who competed were:

Results

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

Organisation

Bids were originally to be presented to FIDE no later than 31 May 2024. Preliminary interest was expressed in early 2024 by Argentina, India, and Singapore.

In June 2024, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky announced that FIDE had received three bids to host the championship, two from India (Chennai and New Delhi), and one from Singapore. In July 2024, FIDE announced that the match would take place in Singapore from 20 November to 15 December 2024, with four venues being considered. Ultimately, the Singapore Chess Federation revealed that the Equarius Hotel at Resorts World Sentosa was chosen as the venue to host the world championship match. The main sponsor of the event was Google.

The prize fund allocated for the event was US$2.5 million. Each player received US$200,000 for each game won (including forfeits), and the remainder of the money was split equally. If there was a tiebreak, however, the winner would receive US$1.3 million and the loser would receive US$1.2 million. That would also have been the distribution if the final score was 7½–6½ with 13 decisive games or 8–6 with 14 decisive games.

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

Match regulations

The regulations and format of the match were slightly different from the 2023 edition.

The time control for each game in the classical portion of the match was 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting from move 41.

The match was a best of 14 games; a score of at least 7½ won the world championship. If the score was equal after 14 games, tiebreak games with faster time controls would be played:

• A match consisting of 4 rapid games with 15 minutes per side and a 10-second increment starting with move 1 would be played. If a player scored 2½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score was still equal, a mini-match of two rapid games would be played, with 10 minutes per side and a 5-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score was equal after the rapid portion, a mini-match of two blitz games would be played, with a time control of 3 minutes per side and a 2-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship. A drawing of lots would take place before each mini-match to decide which player played with the white pieces.
• If the blitz mini-match was 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 played with the white pieces. If this game was drawn, another blitz game with reversed colors would be played with the same time control, and the winner would win the championship. This process would be repeated until either player won 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 had occurred.

Previous head-to-head record

Prior to the match, Ding and Gukesh had played against each other three times in classical time controls. Ding won two games with the black pieces during the 2023 and 2024 editions of the Tata Steel Chess Tournament, while their most recent pre-championship game during the 2024 Sinquefield Cup resulted in a draw.

A poll of various grandmasters before the match began found Gukesh a substantial favorite, mainly because of Ding's poor form over the past couple of months. In an October 2024 interview, Gukesh commented that he generally did not "believe in predictions and who are the favorites", and stated that he tried to "be at [his] best every day and play a good game".

Seconds

Before the match, Gukesh specified that he was working with Grzegorz Gajewski, who was also his second during the 2024 Candidates Tournament. After the match, Gukesh revealed further seconds that supported him before and during the match. Cricket coach Paddy Upton was on Gukesh's team as a mental conditioning coach. Ding Liren was working with Richárd Rapport, who was also his main second in the 2023 championship, and Ni Hua.

Schedule

The games began at 17:00 local time (SGT), which is 14:30 (IST) & 09:00 UTC.

Colors were drawn at the opening ceremony. Gukesh received the white pieces for the first game. Colors alternated thereafter, with no switching at the halfway point.