The chess world has its eyes on the upcoming classical World Chess Championship match between title holder Ding Liren and young challenger Gukesh Dommaraju in a titanic clash that will decide who is one of the best chess players in the world behind Magnus Carlsen.
All joking aside, the world chess championship is always a momentous occasion and there have been many other times in the history of the royal game when it wasn’t the clear number one and number two contesting the title. (Anand-Gelfand, anyone?) It still remains the crown jewel of the chess world and a must-watch event of epic proportions.
Here is everything you need to know about the 2024 World Chess Championship.
2024 World Chess Championship match schedule and venue, explained
The 2024 World Chess Championship match will take place between November 20 and December 15 in Singapore. At the time of writing, the specific venue has not been selected by FIDE, but four venues are supposedly under consideration.
FIDE has not yet revealed the up-to-date regulations and rules related to this year’s World Chess Championship match, but it is a reasonable assumption that it will follow suit with the 2023 match, whose format looked like this:
- 14 classical games (120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 for the next 20, and 15 minutes for the remainder of the game, with 30 seconds of increment added per move)
- Tiebreakers: If the players are level after the 14 classical games, mini-matches with progressively faster time controls will follow.
- Four 25+10 rapid games
- Two 5+3 blitz games
- Another set of two 5+3 blitz games
- Individual 3+2 games until a winner is found
Who are the players in the 2024 World Chess Championship?
Reigning world champion Ding Liren will face young Indian phenom Gukesh D in Singapore in a fascinating clash of generations. Ding has been an elite-level player of the past decade who has lost some of his shine since ascending to the chess summit, while Gukesh is one of the many promising Indian youngsters coming to prominence around this time, winning the Candidates Tournament in spectacular fashion to punch his ticket to the big match.
At the time of writing, based on the July 2024 ratings list, Ding Liren is ranked number fifteen in the world in classical chess with an Elo of 2745. His challenger is number six with an Elo of 2766.
