How the War on Ukraine Shaped a World Chess Championship; the Sad and Incredible Journey of a Legendary Grandmaster Part 3

The road to the World Championship is supposed to be the crowning achievement of a player’s career, but for Ding Liren, it became the most demanding psychological battle of his life. After years of isolation and mounting pressure, the stage was set for a showdown that would push two of the world’s best players to their absolute limits.

In this final part of our three-part series, writer Mohammed Shahil chronicles the heart-pounding conclusion of the 17th World Chess Championship. He explores the high-stakes drama of the tie-breakers in Astana, where one courageous move—played with only seconds on the clock—changed the course of history and crowned a new king.

But the story doesn’t end with the trophy; we also look at the heavy toll that the title took on Ding, his struggle to find himself again, and his recent, triumphant return to the world stage. This is the conclusion of an extraordinary journey that proves just how unpredictable, and resilient, a true champion can be.

Magnus Carlsen made good on his word and vacated the title. It is Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Ding Liren. The 17th world championship was a bloody gruelling battle. None of the previous championships were as thrilling as this one, primarily because people were too scared to go toe to toe with Magnus Carlsen. A war with Magnus is not something you usually come out of alive, so everybody tried to draw their games. Even though Magnus eventually won, out of 63 games he played over the course of 5 classical world championships 45 games ended in draws. But now it is between equals, if this match were to happen four years ago, Ding would’ve been a heavy favourite being a weight class above but that is not the case anymore. Both players think they can beat each other, it is anybody’s game, a proper dog fight.

The world chess championship is a 14-game event and the first player to score 7.5 points will take the title, and if the scores are even, it will progress into a rapid and blitz tie-break play off.

The Crown

On April 9, 2023, Ding Liren sat down across Ian Nepomniachtchi at the St. Regis Hotel in Astana, Kazakhstan looking for a glorious end to his odyssey. However, his opponent, The Russian grandmaster known for his aggressive style is no stranger to these waters, he is the runner up of the previous world championship match and has won the Candidates tournament two times in a row.

Nepo, with the white pieces, opens the first game with Pawn to e4, Ding responds with e5 and enters a Ruy Lopez game. It was a dramatic first game, Nepo had a big edge at one point but eventually Ding managed to hold him to a draw. In game 2 Nepo massacred Ding in just 29 moves. In both games Nepo had the upper hand, Ding took blows left and right. Game 3 ended in a draw as well. Ding is trailing by a clean point, but he struck back in game 4 and levelled the score with a brilliant exchange sacrifice. The slight boost of confidence was short lived though, Nepo won game 5. Ding looked distraught and it was not just about the continuous drop in form, but he openly talked about the psychological struggles that he has been going through in post-game interviews, even Nepo himself said it is hard to play against someone who is so low on himself. Ding is now trailing again but the twists and turns are not over yet, while everyone was ready to write him off, he bounced back with a masterpiece in game 6 and won with brute force. Ding masterfully created a mating net, something that looked straight out of a chess puzzle book, which left even the commentators, some of the greatest players on the planet like Anish Giri and Hikaru Nakamura, speechless. The score is even now but Nepo takes the lead again in game 7. Back-to-back decisive games, a pour of blunders and brilliancies alike. Games 8, 9,10, and 11 ended in draws. With only 3 games left, Ding is still trailing by a full point, Nepo can almost see himself holding that trophy in his hands.

Game 12 would make an interesting case study on the psychological impact of chess. The realisation of the imminent death of the black king wracked Nepo’s nerves, he broke down, He started muttering to himself and walking around like a mad man in the playing hall. Ding rose from the ashes, the score is even again. Games 13 and 14 ended in draws, now the tiebreaker playoffs will decide the champion.

The phase of the tournament with the classical time format is finished, the first set of tie-breaks will happen in the Rapid format, if the scores are even in the Rapid as well, the match will progress into blitz playoffs. Even though Ding’s form is questionable, he is a former world number 1 in both formats, and his rapid rating is 2829 which is almost 70 points higher than Nepo. However, that is not relevant anymore, Ding has already seen the terrifying jaws of defeat in this match, and anything can happen.

The first three rapid games ended in a draw, both players played confident and theoretically accurate chess. If the next game is also a draw, they will move on to the blitz playoffs.

The final Rapid game begins; Nepo with the white pieces, opens with Pawn to e4, Ding responds with e5, the Anti-Marshall game kind of evened out as it progressed. Nepo is up on time, Ding has just 1 minute, and 33 seconds left on his clock. Nepo evaluates the position, realises that none of them have any advantage and decides to make a draw to try his luck in the blitz. One of the ways to make a draw in chess is through a 3-fold repetition; if the same position occurs three times, a draw can be claimed. On move 44 Nepo moves his queen from the d5 square to e4 square and gives a check, Ding moves his king from h7 to G8, both start repeating the position, queen to d5, king to h7, queen to e4 and as Nepo was waiting for the handshake, he got rocked with a haymaker. Ding did not repeat with king to g8, he moved his Rook to g6 instead and refused the draw. It was a knockout blow, a psychological curb stomp. Nobody was expecting it, all the commentators were calling it a day and saying, “see you tomorrow for the blitz playoffs.”

There is nothing spectacular about the move itself other than Ding’s resilience and courage to play on with just a minute on the clock. It doesn’t give black any decisive advantage, but it throws Nepo off the balance. He panics and immediately makes a mistake.

However, it’s still not over, Nepo is on his knees but to deliver the killing blow Ding still needs to play with extreme accuracy under time pressure. Nepo fought back hard but Ding dodged all the desperate dagger attempts, the black pawns marched across the board. As Grandmaster Fabiano Caruana’s words, “just one more move, pawn to A2, and it is over” echoed in the live commentary, Ding moved his pawn to A2. Nepo took a deep breath, he looked at the trophy that slipped through his hands twice for one last time and made his final move, he took the A2 Pawn with his queen and his right hand dropped dead on the board knocking off the fallen pieces, Ding responded by taking the f4 pawn with his bishop and on move 68 of round 18, Ian Nepomniachtchi resigned the game. And just like that, on his way down the ladder of form and rating Ding Liren collected the ultimate crown of chess and became the 17th undisputed classical champion of the world replacing Magnus Carlson.

Being the world champion was not a ride into the sunset for Ding; the plague of misfortune followed the new king everywhere. He struggled with mental health issues, rating plummeted to 2728 and got dropped to world number 23. He completely disappeared from chess.

On December 12, 2024, Ding lost his crown to Gukesh in the 14th round of the match. Gukesh did not win that game, it was a Harakari by Ding, with a silly blunder he threw away a game that was heading towards a draw. The image of his motionless head next to the board which made him immortal, reminded of Shelly’s lines, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”.

After a long hiatus, just three weeks ago, Ding made a return to the international stage for the 2026 FIDE world rapid and blitz team championship. It featured all the world’s strongest players including Magnus Carlsen himself playing on board 1 for team WR chess. Ding played on board 1 for Dragon chilling. He won both the Rapid and blitz golds and became a double world champion, again!