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Liren won the world crown in May last year after defeating Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi. He took a break from the game after that, owing to his battle with depression.
Ding Liren, back home ahead of his World Championship clash against D Gukesh (X/Take Take Take)
Ace Indian chess GM D Gukesh is slated to take on Chinese GM Ding Liren in the final of the World Championships in the coming weeks, and the overwhelming consensus across the chess world is that the Indian teenager holds the edge over his competitor in the summit clash.
Former World Champion Magnus Carlsen had his say in the matter as well, stating that Liren’s lack of confidence is the biggest factor that shall dictate the outcome of the highly-anticipated matchup aginst Gukesh.
“I think what happened with Ding (Liren) is that he has not completely recovered from that World Championship yet. You could argue that maybe the only thing that could make him recover completely is to win this one,” Magnus Carlsen said on the newly launched Take Take Take app.
Liren won the world crown in May last year after defeating Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi. He took a break from the game after that, owing to his battle with depression.
“You can sense when Ding plays that he is lacking confidence. He’s apprehensive in his play…He’s still finding it hard to make the decisions he needs to make when the chips are down and tends to really gravitate towards the safer choices. Often those can be very dangerous to make.”
“If he has that mentality when he plays the match, it’s going to be hard to win games. So I feel like that’s where the difficulty really lies for Ding. Because he’s going to get chances against Gukesh. Gukesh is an extremely strong player. But he doesn’t have that experience yet to be not giving away chances at all,” exclaimed Carlsen.
When asked about whether Carlsen himself had discussed the same with Liren, the Norwegian said that he wanted to respect the World Champion’s privacy, but stated that he would always be welcome to talk to him.
“I haven’t talked to Ding about that. I feel like I don’t want to pry. So obviously if he asked me I would give my very best advice. But I haven’t talked to him about it,” Carlsen stated.
“In his position, I would try and think that everything that’s happened the last few years, none of it matters if he wins the World Championship. All of that will be quite quickly forgotten. He has very little to lose. And just treat every game like it’s a normal game. Try to put himself in a position like he would have done five years ago. And everyone knows that Ding is capable.”
Liren’s challenger Gukesh won the Candidates tournament in April to become the youngest challenger to the world title at the age of 17. He turned 18 in May.
The two will clash in Singapore from November 20 to December 15 for the coveted title and a prize fund of USD 2.50 million.
Should the teenager prevail, it would make him the first Indian after the great Viswanathan Anand to claim the title.