Ding Liren

Ding Liren is the 17th world champion in the history of chess. In 2023, the grandmaster from China won the prestigious world champion’s title after defeating Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi in the World Chess Championship match. What was remarkable about the title was that Ding Liren managed to prevail in the battle despite battling depression off the board.

What was also significant about Ding Liren winning the World Chess Championship title in 2023 was that he became the first male Chinese player to win the World Chess Championship. China has had a long history of women’s world champions. Ding Liren is known for his solid, methodical style of play and his ability to outlast opponents in long, complex games.

Ding Liren will be defending his world champion’s crown against Indian chess prodigy D Gukesh in the 2024 World Chess Championship, which will be held in Singapore. Ding has been thought of as the underdog in the battle against Gukesh by many grandmasters like Magnus Carlsen.

Born on October 24, 1992, Ding Liren started learning chess from the age of four after his mother sent him to a chess club in the chess-loving city of Wenzhou in China.

Ding Liren was lucky to receive early training under Chen Lixing, who also trained former Women's World Champion Zhu Chen.

Ding Liren gave an early indicator of his talent by tying for first place in the Under-10 and then the Under-12 World Youth Championships (in 2003 and 2004 respectively). In both instances he only finished second by virtue of tiebreaks.

In 2009, Ding announced himself as one of the most dangerous players in the world by becoming the youngest-ever Chinese champion, at just 16 years of age. At this stage, he was not even a grandmaster.

Ding Liren led from the front to help the Chinese chess team claim a gold medal at the Chess Olympiad in 2014. A year later, Ding became only the second Chinese player, after Wang Yue, to enter the world’s top 10 in the FIDE rankings.

The years from 2017 onwards saw the world see the strongest version of Ding Liren. In 2018, for example, Ding claimed an individual gold medal at the Chess Olympiad while helping China win team gold. 2018 also saw Ding become the first Chinese player in history to surpass the lofty 2800- ELO rating barrier. He touched a rating of 2816. The world of chess also remembers Ding Liren as the player who — from August 2017 to November 2018 — went unbeaten in 100 consecutive classical games.