An explosive leak overshadows what is happening at the 2023 World Chess Championship in Astana: Ding Liren was apparently preparing for the event in public online games. Experts sharply criticize the Chinese for this approach. Also opponent Jan Nepomnjaschtschi reacts.
After the eighth game at the World Chess Championship last Thursday, a Reddit user dropped the bombshell: he presented clear evidence on the social news platform that Ding and his second Richard Rapport used the pseudonyms “FVitelli” in mid-February. and “opqrstuv” in a game on the platform lichess.org preparing for the World Cup.
“There is no doubt that these are their usernames. The probability that it is different is zero,” commented US grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura on the revelations.
“It was a training match between thing and rapport. That’s 100 percent certain and everyone knows it,” said Norwegian Johan-Sebastian Christiansen.
The fact that Ding obviously prepared so carelessly for the most important event of his career and disclosed his planning games for the duels with Nepomnjaschtschi in advance causes disbelief in the chess scene.
Ding Liren’s preparation for the World Chess Championship under criticism
“It’s amateurish that they haven’t found a better training opportunity than this one for others to discover,” said NRK expert Torstein Bae. “It’s strange that the risk wasn’t considered.”
Monika Machlik, Norway’s top chess player, also described Ding’s training on lichess.org as “very surprising”. She sees this as an advantage for Nepomnjaschtschschi. “I think it has something to do with psychology. It’s very unpleasant news for Ding,” said Machlik.
Chess World Championship 2023: That’s what Jan Nepomnjaschtschi and Ding Liren say
The two protagonists of the World Chess Championship themselves have already commented on the revelations. “The hype that is currently being made about it is too big. It has changed more or less nothing for me. I still did what I had planned to do,” said Nepomnyashchi at a press conference.
thing turned ignorant. “I don’t know which games it’s about,” said the 30-year-old, who is one point behind Nepomnyashchi after ten games and three draws in a row.