Carlsen’s spectre looms as Ding and Nepomniachtchi launch title match

All the trappings of a world championship match are in place: the headline-grabbing prize fund, the throngs of working media and cocktail-sipping VIPs, the sound-proof studio couched inside a sleek purpose-built playing hall. The only thing that’s missing is the sport’s best player and most compelling draw.

Magnus Carlsen, considered the greatest chess player on the planet even before rising to the No 1 ranking more than a decade ago and winning the title from Viswanathan Anand, will be enjoying a skiing holiday in the French Alps when Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi and China’s Ding Liren kick off their €2m ($2.2m) world title match on Sunday at the St Regis Astana Hotel in the Kazakh capital.

The 32-year-old Norwegian’s name was mentioned only once on Saturday when Nepomniachtchi and Ding met for a final press conference ahead of their best-of-14-games showdown. But the spectre of Carlsen continues to loom over a title match that has been criticized as “amputated” due to his absence, calling into question the legitimacy of the title at stake.

“I was surprised,” Ding said Saturday during the conciliatory, tight-lipped 45-minute affair. “Magnus not playing has surprised me a little bit.”

Carlsen bolstered his claim as the greatest player of this or any other era back in 2021, when he crushed Nepomniachtchi in Dubai in his fourth title defense, one short of the suddenly imperilled all-time record of five. His winning score of 7½-3½ with three games to spare was the most lopsided result in a world title match since José Raúl Capablanca’s triumph over Emanuel Lasker exactly 100 years before in Havana.

But he floated the idea of giving up his title almost immediately afterward, citing a lack of motivation as the primary factor in a podcast finally confirming his abdication last summer. It marks only the second time in the 137-year history of world championship matchplay that a holder has opted not to defend his crown – after American grandmaster Bobby Fischer controversially forfeited the belt amid disputes with organizers over the match format in 1975.

“I’ve spoken to people in my team, I’ve spoken to Fide, I spoke to Ian as well,” Carlsen said. “The conclusion is very simple: I’m not motivated to play another match. I don’t have a lot to gain. I don’t particularly like it, and although I’m sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons, I don’t have any inclinations to play and I will simply not play the match.”

Ding Liren is the first Chinese player to compete for a men’s world chess championship. Photograph: Stev Bonhage/Fide

Carlsen, who has twice reached the highest ever Elo rating of 2882 (once in 2014 and again in 2019), has not retired. But rather than endure the months-long slog of preparation that world title matches demand, he revealed his intent in July to shift focus toward becoming the first player in history to reach an Elo rating of 2900 – the record-shattering plateau that experts have deemed “virtually impossible”. (They may be right: even Carlsen has walked back the goal in recent months.)

What’s left is a delicious matchup between the second-ranked Nepomniachtchi and third-ranked Ding, even if critics including longtime world champion Garry Kasparov insist the stakes have been neutered by Carlsen’s absence.

“I can hardly call it a world championship match,” Kasparov told the Saint Louis Chess Club last month. “For me, the world championship match should include the strongest player on the planet, and this match doesn’t.”

He added: “I’m not here to comment on Magnus’ decision, but it’s kind of an amputated event. I have my own history with Fide, so that’s why I’m not going to change my view about the Fide championship. It’s a pity Magnus is not there and, naturally, the match between Nepo and Ding is a great show anyway, but it’s not a world championship match.”

Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren met on Saturday for a final press conference ahead of their best-of-14-games world championship match at the St Regis Astana Hotel. Photograph: Stev Bonhage/Fide

Nepomniachtchi, 32, bounced back admirably from his demoralizing defeat to Carlsen by winning the eight-man candidates tournament last summer in Madrid with a record 9½/14 score. He will start with the white pieces in the opening game after Friday’s drawing of lots and play under a neutral Fide flag, having signed an open letter last year condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“His recovery and dominating win in the candidates was grace under pressure and proof that he is open to constructive criticism of his chess weaknesses, some of which he seems to have fixed,” said Cyrus Lakdawala, the author of several books on Nepomniachtchi’s creative, risk-taking style.

The 30-year-old Ding, who favors a more solid, methodical approach, rallied for second place at that event with a dramatic final-round win over the American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, clinching his spot in the world title match thanks to Carlsen’s withdrawal.

The first Chinese player to compete for a men’s world title, Ding could join the Shanghai-born reigning women’s world champion Ju Wenjun as twin towers at the pinnacle of the sport – an unthinkable outcome at the outset of the Cultural Revolution when chess was banned as a game of the decadent West. And while chess still trails in popularity to its Chinese iteration (Xiangqi) and Go in Ding’s home country, Fide officials are hopeful that his involvement in the sport’s showcase event could ignite a boom in China similar to what India experienced during Anand’s seven-year title reign from 2007 through 2013.

“Sometimes I think about becoming the first Chinese world champion as well as the 17th world champion and writing my name in history,” Ding said Saturday. “If I can do that, it will be a huge glory.”