Like many Australians, when a Test match finishes early, I spend the next day pottering around the house completely devoid of purpose. My soul understands that I should be spending this time watching cricket. That there is no cricket to watch opens a void in my life. What am I to fill it with? Chores, charity or family? No, that is not acceptable. I need another way to waste my time.
Fortunately for me, there is an even more wonderfully ponderous and very occasionally thrilling event going on at this very moment, and it’s the perfect antidote for anyone who finds Test cricket to be a little too high octane. I’m speaking of the world chess championship, which is currently being held in Singapore.
• Read our complete World Chess Championship watch guide
The players
China’s Ding Liren is defending the world chess championship against fast-rising Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju. The best-of-14-games match is scheduled to take place from 23 November to 15 December at Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore for an overall prize fund of $2.5m (£1.98m).
Ding became China's first men’s world chess champion by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi last year in Kazakhstan, winning the title vacated by longtime world No 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway. But the 32-year-old from Zhejiang province has played only 44 classical games in the 19 months since winning the world title while battling personal difficulties including depression and will go off as an underdog in his first world title defense.
Gukesh, commonly known as Gukesh D, stunned the chess establishment by winning the eight-man Candidates tournament in Toronto aged 17 to become the youngest ever challenger for the world championship, finishing top of a stacked field that included Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The 18-year-old can shatter the record for youngest ever world champion held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he dethroned Karpov in their 1985 rematch in Moscow.
The format
The match will consist of 14 classical games with each player awarded one point for a win and a half-point for a draw. Whoever reaches seven and a half points first will be declared the champion.
The time control for each game in the classical portion is 120 minutes per side for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment per move starting with move 41.
If the score is equal after 14 games, tiebreak games with faster time controls will be played:
• A match consisting of four rapid games with 15 minutes per side and a 10-second increment starting with move 1 would be played. If a player scores 2½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score is still equal, a mini-match of two rapid games would be played, with 10 minutes per side and a five-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship.
• If the score is equal after the rapid portion, a mini-match of two blitz games would be played, with a time control of three minutes per side and a two-second increment starting with move 1. If a player scored 1½ points or more, he would win the championship. A drawing of lots would take place before each mini-match to decide which player plays with the white pieces.
• If the blitz mini-match are tied, a single blitz game with a time control of three minutes per side and a two-second increment starting with move 1 would be played, and the winner would win the championship. A drawing of lots would decide which player plays with the white pieces. If this game was drawn, another blitz game with reversed colors would be played with the same time control, and the winner would win the championship. This process is repeated until either player wins a game.
Players are not allowed to agree to a draw before black's 40th move. A draw claim before then is only permitted if a threefold repetition or stalemate has occurred.
The schedule
Sat 23 Nov Opening ceremony and technical meeting
Sun 24 Nov Rest day
Mon 25 Nov Game 1 (Gukesh–Ding, 0-1)
Tue 26 Nov Game 2 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Wed 27 Nov Game 3 (Gukesh-Ding, 1-0)
Thu 28 Nov Rest day
Fri 29 Nov Game 4 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Sat 30 Nov Game 5 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Sun 1 Dec Game 6 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Mon 2 Dec Rest day
Tue 3 Dec Game 7 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Wed 4 Dec Game 8 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Thu 5 Dec Game 9 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Fri 6 Dec Rest day
Sat 7 Dec Game 10 (Ding-Gukesh, ½-½)
Sun 8 Dec Game 11 (Gukesh-Ding, 1-0)
Mon 9 Dec Game 12 (Ding-Gukesh, 1-0)
Tue 10 Dec Rest Day
Wed 11 Dec Game 13 (Gukesh-Ding, ½-½)
Thu 12 Dec Game 14 (Ding-Gukesh, 0-1)
Fri 13 Dec Tiebreaks (if necessary)
Sat 14 Dec Closing ceremony
All games start at 5pm local time, 2.30pm in India, 9am in London, 4am in New York.
The viewing experience has never been more accessible to the casual chess fan, like me, who knows in theory what is happening on the board, but lacks the necessary genius to really comprehend the tactical battle as it unfolds. There are now live streams on YouTube with expert commentators using the often considerable gap between moves to take us through the thought process of both players, walk us through the many options they might choose and react to the devastating moves as they happen. Then, the next morning, you can find several recap commentators, like the very popular Levy Rozman, known online as GothamChess, who will patiently explain to dunces like me exactly why those moves were devastating, with all the excitement and drama of a football final.
This year is an exceptionally dramatic showdown, too. With dominant champion Magnus Carlsen stepping back from the board, the pathway has been opened for the reigning champion, Ding Liren, to defend his title. Ding, who pulled off an unlikely victory in the previous world championship, has been out of form – but you can never write off a champion. Then there’s the story of the challenger, a young man named Gukesh Dommaraju: at 18 years old, he’s the third-youngest grandmaster in history, and not yet at the height of his powers. It’s the kind of showdown you dream about if you have dreams about specific chess players meeting at an interesting time in their careers, which is a dream that even Freud would struggle to find interesting.
Like all great sports, timing is a factor. The clocks count down. The pressure builds. They have only two hours each to make their moves. Unless they reach the 40-move mark, at which point they receive an additional 30 minutes and then more time after each move.
But make no mistake, clock management is an issue. Ding is known for enjoying an early-game think for 20 to 40 minutes before making his move. This puts the pressure on the back half of his game and he has already lost one round on time. Lucky for him, his opponent is also prone to dramatic bouts of thinking, such as the moment in Game 11 when after one hour of solid, high-octane thought, he moved a pawn one space forward. Oh yes, what could be more thrilling than watching two men have a think-off, livestreamed around the world. I’m moving to the edge of my seat just thinking about their thinking.
The competitors have just completed match 12 of a potential 14-match series that had, at one point, included six thrilling draws in a row. But we are now in the endgame and the heavyweight champions are throwing haymakers.
Two games ago, we saw Gukesh execute an exceptional opening gameplan and gain a late lead in the tournament. The seemingly sleeping giant Ding was out of form, slow, and the tournament was hanging in the balance. But crunch time is where champions are made, and with his back against the wall, Ding deliberately and devastatingly constricted Gukesh, forcing him to crack under incredible pressure, and we are once again tied at six games apiece.
Now, like penalties in a football World Cup final, the spectre of a blitz match (a high-speed playoff) looms ahead of both players, and the tactical decision remains: do you play for a draw and prepare for the sudden-death playoff, or can either of these players sneak out another victory and take the world championship?
I am a boring man and I enjoy my boring little hobbies, but there’s nothing more exciting in the world of being boring than what’s happening on the board in Singapore. Get in, my boring brethren, things just got interesting.
James Colley is a comedy writer from Sydney. His debut novel The Next Big Thing is out now
