Undoubtedly one of the most exciting world title matches in history. Very changeable, on several occasions Ian Nepomniachtchi took the lead, but Ding Liren managed to equalize. In total, 6 of 14 games ended in victory for one of the two rivals.

The 7-7 equality in the classic modality forced a tiebreaker in rapid games, where the players also showed enormous parity, just as they did during the first 14 games. There were draws in the first three, but the fourth game finally defined the champion.

First world champion for China

Playing with the black pieces, that fourth and final game went to Ding Liren, who thus became the new FIDE world champion, taking the place that until now belonged to Magnus Carlsen. He will be the first Chinese outright world champion, as the women’s championship has already had several Chinese players as champions (including current title holder Ju Wenjun).

In addition, like all Candidates Tournament since 2013, it has a two-round league format. So far, 11 of the 14 rounds have been played and the winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament will face Carlsen in the World Championship scheduled for 2023.

Four games were played in round 11, two of them ended with a winner, while the other two finished in a draw. Hikaru Nakamura and Teimour Radjabov drew with Richard Rapport and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, respectively. While Ian Nepomniachtchi and Liren Ding both played with black pieces and defeated Alireza Firouzja and Fabiano Caruana, respectively.

Standings after 11rounds of the 2022 Candidates Tournament

It remains to be seen how the tournament will end, but Carlsen said he will only defend his title against Firouzja, and the Frenchman is currently in last place in the standings.

2022 Candidates Tournament 12th round: Clashes

Richard Rapport vs Fabiano Caruana
Liren Ding vs Teimour Radjabov
Jan-Krzysztof Duda vs Alireza Firouzja
Ian Nepomniachtchi vs Hikaru Nakamura

It is that recently it was known that Daniil Dubov, a Russian player and part of the team from that country, was part of “Team Carlsen” during the match against his compatriot Ian Niepomniachtchi. Once this news was known, there were not a few who came out to accuse Daniil of “traitor”, recalling those times of accusations of espionage and treason that occurred in the matches between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, and those of Anatoly Karpov against to Victor Krochnoi.

Treason accusations

One of the first to come forward to accuse Dubov was Sergey Karjakin, a former Carlsen champion who was part of Niepomniachtchi’s team for the world title match. This he said in a tweet after the match: “Of course I congratulate the world champion, but a little comment. Imagine you have to play a title match against Carlsen. Would you accept help from Hammer or Tari?”, in reference to Aryan Tari and Jon Ludvig Hammer, the GMs who are number two and three in Norway.

Another who came out to accuse Daniil, although more harshly, was the coach of his adolescence, Sergey Shipov, who said: “Ah, Danya, Danya… Why? For how much? Why was it not possible to rest for a match or comment on a website? And now the seeds of discord have been sown in the Russian team”.

In addition, Shipov made a comparison on what would have happened in the case of Azeri or Polish chess players: “Imagine that Duda is playing the match and Wojtaszek helps his rival. How would they look at it in Warsaw? Or if Mamedyarov plays the match of his life and Radjabov is on the other side. Would they react calmly in Baku? “.

What did Niepomniachtchi say?

Ian Niepomniachtchi chilled the controversy. Far from being outraged like many of his compatriots, the world runner-up responded when asked: “We should thank Dubov for that!” since he understands that those games in which Dubov‘s help was seen much more were those in which he had the most chances to win.

Despite this, Niepomniachtchi considered that the most logical thing would have been for Daniil to remain neutral. In an interview with him for the Russian Chess Federation, Ian commented: “Above all, I think it is an aspect of the business, because Daniil has been cooperating with the Carlsen team since 2018. On the other hand, we also worked together for a few two years, so it would make more sense for him, in my opinion, to remain neutral. On behalf of the team, however, we must thank Dubov, because my best chances of winning in singles matches came after those ideas that, it seems, can be attributed to Daniil’s manual work”.

What did Dubov reply about the controversy?

Of course, in the face of so many accusations, the Russian GM had to come out to defend himself. In an interview for championat.com, Daniil responded to the question of when he started working with Carlsen for the world title match: “Before the start of the Candidates. They asked me what I thought about the idea of helping. I replied that it would be ok. That is perhaps the first thing I would like to point out about this rather strange review. In normal teams all theagreements are formulated in advance”.

On the other hand, Dubov established a difference between a Carlsen-Niepomniachtchi match and one between the Russian and Norwegian teams, understanding that it is not the same for two chess players to play for the title as two countries. On the question of whether the world championship was by teams, the Russian GM replied: “So, of course, it most likely won’t help the Norwegians, but this was a Niepomniachtchi against Carlsen. And there are not only Russians on Ian’s team, as I understand it. Here, you could say, he is a blond haired boy against a dark haired boy”.