Gukesh Vs Ding: Here's What The Numbers Say

On November 25, World Champion Ding Liren will aim to defend his title in a match against GM Gukesh Dommaraju. IM Rakesh Kulkarni has analyzed the match and its place in chess history. Here's what we can look forward to.

Match Details

The 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship match will consist of a best-of-14 game match for the world championship between November 25 and December 13 at the Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore. If the match is tied after 14 games, the players will compete in rapid tiebreaks and, if needed, blitz tiebreaks.

The standard games have a classical time control of 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 more minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting on move 41. The players cannot agree to a draw during the first time control, so you can expect to see fighting chess.

Who Are The Players?

Ding, representing China, is the defending champion. He won the title in a hotly-contested match in 2023 against Ian Nepomniachtchi. Ding won the rapid tiebreak in dramatic fashion.

The moment Ding Liren became the FIDE World Champion 🥹🏆 pic.twitter.com/FSu9rsVg49

— Chess.com (@chesscom) April 30, 2023

Since the match, Ding has struggled with his health and focus. He has mostly kept the details private, but it has affected both the frequency and level of his play. Ding has played only 44 classical games in the eighteen months since earning the world title. He's hoping to turn things around in this match and regain the form that made him a champion and brought him a 2816 rating, tied for the 10th highest of all time.

At just 18 years old, Gukesh aims to become the youngest uncontested world champion ever. He narrowly qualified for the 2024 Candidates Tournament and was not considered one of the favorites going into the event. Past champion and current world number-one Magnus Carlsen gave a harsh prediction about Gukesh's chances:

For Gukesh, it's very hard to say. I cannot imagine him winning, but I can see him being anywhere from +2 to -5. I think he will certainly win at least a couple of good games but have some fairly bad losses as well. I don't think he will do poorly, but I don't think he will do too well, either. I don't think he fits into either category, but I think he is not quite ready yet to make the leap, and I think it's probably more likely that he will have a bad event than a good event.

However, Gukesh shocked the chess world by winning five games and taking first place ahead of stars like Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura, and Fabiano Caruana.

Gukesh has been making rapid progress and will enter the match as the significantly higher-rated player, with a 55-Elo advantage.

What To Expect

Despite Gukesh's rating advantage, Ding leads their head-to-head history. Ding has defeated Gukesh twice in classical games, with one draw and no losses. Ding's most recent classical victory against Gukesh happened in January in the 2024 Tata Steel Chess tournament. 

In other formats, Gukesh has held his own. The players have drawn in online rapid and blitz games, and Gukesh won their only Freestyle Chess matchup earlier this year. The game below was played in an online "Ding vs. Challengers" blitz event.

Despite Ding's historical advantage, most experts expect Gukesh to triumph. 

Overall, since playing the Candidates to qualify for his previous title match, Ding has played 79 classical games and has posted a negative score, with 12 wins, 17 losses, and 50 draws. In that same time span, Gukesh has played 221 games, with 90 wins against only 26 losses and 105 draws. In that time, Ding performed at a rating of 2705 and lost 78 rating points, while Gukesh played at a 2759 level and gained 99 points!

Whom Should You Root For?

Here are a few fun facts to help you decide which corner to take.

• Gukesh would be the youngest undisputed world champion at 18. He's already the youngest challenger. The current youngest undisputed champion is GM Garry Kasparov at 22 years, six months, and 27 days old. We should note that GM Ruslan Ponomariov was actually slightly younger than Gukesh's current age when he won the FIDE knockout world championship in 2002, but that wasn't won in a match format against the reigning champion, and there were two world championship titles back then.
• This is the first world championship match that features no players born in Europe. Chess is a truly global game and Ding and Gukesh, representing China and India, demonstrate that it's only growing around the world.
• Ding is the lowest-ranked world champion of the Elo era. FIDE ratings date back to 1971. In that time there have been eight undisputed world champions. They haven't always been the highest-rated player in the world, but Ding's recent struggles have made him the 21st-ranked player in the world, the only world champion to fall out of the top 10 while he was the champion.
• Ding hasn't been very active in rapid chess recently, but he is currently the second highest-rated rapid player in the world, at 2776, only behind Carlsen. Gukesh's rapid rating is "only" 2654, so if the match goes to tiebreaks, Ding may be the favorite.

Who do you think will win the match? Let us know in the comments!