2023-04-30 16:23:34
They went to the end of the suspense, as for the final of the last Football World Cup. On Sunday 30 April in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, the world chess championship was decided by quick games, which is to chess what the penalty shootout is to football: a test, almost torture, where the title is played with nothing, nerves, reflexes. In this game, it was the Chinese Ding Liren who was the strongest, beating the Russian Ian Népomniachtchi at the end of the fourth and last rapid game, the first three having ended in a draw.
The two men had recourse to the tiebreaker after having each totaled 7 points during the fourteen games in long rhythm, played from April 9 to 29. Ding Liren thus becomes the seventeenth world chess champion in history, succeeding the one who held the world crown since 2013 and still remains the number one in the points standings, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen.
The latter, after having won five world championships in a row and dominating all the chess players of the previous generation and his own, had in fact decided not to put his title back into play. 32, had speculated that he would only do so on the condition of facing a new generation grandmaster, such as the Frenchman of Iranian origin Alireza Firouzja, 20 and current 4e world player. But this one had sunk during the Candidates Tournament which was disputed at the beginning of the summer of 2022 in Madrid. True to his word, Magnus Carlsen had therefore chosen to withdraw, which forced the International Chess Federation to draft Ding Liren, second in the Candidates Tournament, to face the first, Ian Népomniachtchi.
In Astana, the fourteen long games were very animated, punctuated by numerous errors which finally made the competition lively and spectacular. Visibly better prepared, Ian Népomniachtchi took the lead three times. And three times his opponent, with incredible resilience, came back to score, taking advantage in particular of a certain psychological weakness of the Russian, sometimes capable, despite his immense talent, of “swinging” a game with a blunder. A flaw that came to light in 2021, when Magnus Carlsen heavily corrected the Russian during the last world championship, played in Dubai. Ian Nepomniachtchi had completely cracked, losing four games and winning none. The curse of fragile nerves hit the Russian again in Kazakhstan.
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