In 1886, in different cities in the United States, the first official world chess championship took place which saw the triumph, by 10 victories to 5, of the Austrian Wilhelm Steinitz against the Pole Johannes Zukertort. Two Europeans. Since then, every match for the supreme title has included at least one representative from the Old Continent. This “rule” will fall shortly after having applied for one hundred and thirty-eight years.
Indeed, in this year 2024, the world championship will pit two Asians against each other for the first time: the reigning world champion, the Chinese Ding Liren, 32, and the young Indian Gukesh Dommaraju, aged only 18. Endowed with 2.5 million dollars and mainly sponsored by Google – again, a first – the match will be held in Singapore in fourteen games, the first of which is scheduled for Monday November 25.
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Times are far from the supremacy of the USSR and then Russia over the sixty-four squares. The center of gravity of chess has for some time been moving towards Asia, the continent where the game was born. The world title won by Ding Liren in 2023, the first obtained by a Chinese, was the most blatant recent signal. But we could detect well beforehand a fundamental movement in the development of the discipline in the two most populous countries in the world.
The Chinese dethroned the Soviets
China has thus patiently put in place a Soviet-style system, with early detection of talents. A policy which first bore fruit among women. In 1991, Xie Jun put an end to Soviet hegemony and became the first in a long list of Chinese world champions: Zhu Chen, Xu Yuhua, Hou Yifan, Tan Zhongyi and Ju Wenjun who has held the title since 2018. Today, in the women’s ranking established by the International Chess Federation (FIDE), the first four places are occupied by Chinese women.
On the Indian side, the pioneer and driving force behind the development of chess was undoubtedly Viswanathan Anand who, after several unsuccessful attempts and notably a defeat against Garry Kasparov in 1995, conquered the world crown in 2007. He did not cede it that in 2013 to the one who is the most prodigious player of the beginning of XXIe century, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen.
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Still active – at 54, “Vishy” Anand is 10e world player -, the “Tiger of Madras”, as he is nicknamed, has inspired numerous talents and we have witnessed an abundant flowering of great Indian masters, including the young Gukesh Dommeraju, Erigaisi Arjun (21 years old) and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa ( 19 years old). In the latest FIDE rankings, published at the beginning of November, there were five Indians in the first twenty places.
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