India’s D Gukesh and China’s Ding Liren during the 14th game of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2024, in Singapore, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (FIDE/Eng Chin An via PTI Photo)
With the recently concluded World Chess Championship between D Gukesh and Ding Liren coming under fire for its perceived lack of quality, International Chess Federation (FIDE) President Arkady Dvorkovich on Friday came to its defence, saying mistakes make sports interesting.
On Thursday, Gukesh became the youngest world champion after capitalizing on a blunder from Ding Liren in Game 14 which ultimately decided the fate of the championship. After the results were announced, former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was less than impressed, even going on to call Ding’s blunder as a ‘childish’ one.
Reacting to the criticisms, Dvorkovich said at the closing ceremony, “Sports is about mistakes, without mistakes, there would be no goals in football. Every sportsman makes mistakes but that’s what we are excited about, whether the opponent can find the way to use a mistake.”
“No comment. Sad. End of chess as we know it,” Kramnik had written in one of his post on X. He had followed that up with another post saying, Never yet WC title was decided by childish one move blunder.”
A couple of weeks ago, Kramnik had also ranted about Game 6 of the World Championship, saying “Frankly, I am very disappointed by today’s game (Game 6). Even Game 5 was not extremely high level, but today it was really — for a professional — it was really weak play from both players. It’s a very disappointing level.”
Even five-time champion Magnus Carlsen had lashed out at the quality on display at the World Chess Championship saying it doesn’t look like a game between two World Championship contenders.
“This does not look like a game between two World Championship contenders. It just looks like maybe the second round or third round of an open tournament. It’s like it’s the stage where you play somebody who is like decent with openings but then you just win with class,” Carlsen said during a podcast by the Take Take Take app after Game 12.
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