Ding Liren fell onto the board with chess pieces scattered in front of him moments after winning the World Chess Championship last year. With his head down and his expression blank, he seemed to be composing himself after a brutal fight, still staggering from the blows his opponent Ian Nepomniachtchi had delivered, afraid to move in case his legs gave out beneath him.
The pair had dueled for three weeks, maintaining an impressive level of concentration during that period as any momentary lapse could cost them the match.
The is an extraordinary and singular event. Its first edition was held 138 yearsbut in that time, only 17 players became world champions.
“Chess requires total concentration,” observed Bobby Fischer, the only American to win the title, and only those able to maintain that focus for weeks at a time can achieve the sport’s greatest prize.
“It’s our Mount Olympus,” Viswanathan “Vishy” Anand, five-time world chess champion, told CNN Sports. “It’s something you spend a lot of time trying to achieve, aiming for, dreaming about, ever since you learned the game. It’s like climbing Mount Everest or crossing the Amazon.”
World Cup in Singapore
On Monday, this year’s edition of the grueling tournament will begin in Singapore, with China’s Ding looking to defend his title against India’s Gukesh Dommaraju, better known as Gukesh D, who is just 18 and could become the youngest person to be crowned world champion.
“You lose weight during a chess tournament of this intensity. The pressure is absolutely enormous,” Malcolm Pein, chess correspondent for the English newspaper The Daily Telegraph, told CNN Sports. “Most of the time it comes down to exhaustion. The players are very well matched, very well prepared. It’s very difficult to gain an advantage, but sooner or later someone gets tired and that can make them make a mistake.”
Even now, with the tournament devoid of – the best player in the world who is off his second world championship – and the growing popularity of shorter rapid-match and blitz formats, becoming world chess champion is still a recognition that transcends sport.
But the preparation for this tournament has been unlike any other, as Ding faced personal difficulties and mental health challenges following his victory, taking an extended break from chess to focus on his mental health.
Now, he’s “not so bad, not so good,” he told the YouTube chess channel “Take Take Take,” and sees himself as the “underdog” in this tournament.
Marathon
A long history of epic world championships and rivalries hangs over Ding and Gukesh. Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov faced each other for five months in 48 chess games in the 1984 tournament, seeking to achieve the six victories that would crown them world champion.
Karpov had taken a seemingly unattainable 5-0 lead early on, but Kasparov fought back, winning games 32, 47 and 48 to make it 5-3. He was still behind, but he had all the momentum. Karpov, meanwhile, had lost 10 kilos during the championship as he struggled to maintain his lead. Eventually and controversially, the match was interrupted to preserve the health of the players.
Now the tournament lasts weeks instead of monthsbut players must still withstand its immense pressures, each developing “something habitual about how they behave,” says Danny Rensch, chess director at Chess.com.
“Some have a habit of getting up and not spending too much time sitting at the board when it’s not their turn… to keep the blood flowing. Some do this just because that’s how they deal with stress and nervousness,” Rensch told CNN Esportes, adding that others remain sitting at the board locked in the same position.
“The first thing you do when your opponent makes a move is ask yourself, “Why did they make that move? What changed on the board? Is there any threat? And is there a direct threat to my position from this movement? And who do I think is better off, and why… How long do I want to think about my answer? And also, am I playing to win? Am I trying to save this position, or is there no way to avoid a draw?”
Mental fatigue
Although players barely move compared to other sports, the enormous amount of brain power required means they must maintain both their physical and mental fitness.
When Vishy was training in the months before his world championship matches, he would run or cycle for an hour every morning to build up his stamina before devoting himself to chess for six or seven hours a day, working on his opening moves, trying to predict your opponent’s intentions and weaknesses along with coaches who had previously participated in world championships.
In recent years, helping them analyze the best move in any scenario. “They’re not training for a physical activity,” says Rensch.
“They’re training to make sure they’re in great shape, in good overall physical condition, allowing for adequate blood flow and all the things that can help a human maintain a super high level of concentration for hours on end.”
Classification
Just qualifying for the match is already an epic. To be eligible to face the defending champion, the challenger must first win the Candidates Tournament, comprised of the world’s best players, all of whom are in attendance based on their performances in specific tournaments throughout the year.
Before Vishy competed in his first world championship in 1995 against Garry Kasparov, he “had been playing to qualify for the event for five years, so it’s been a long journey,” he says.
Qualifying is so difficult that a world championship appearance may be all a chess player can hope for. This chance could be the only one, which in turn raises the stakes. “Of all the people who lost a world championship game, it took them a while to recover before they even started playing well again or at their previous level,” says Pein. “It’s such a huge blow… So it affects people very negatively.”
