Never has a chess world championship titleholder seemed as vulnerable.
On Monday, Ding Liren, the reigning world champion, will begin a match in Singapore to defend the title against the 18-year-old player Gukesh Dommaraju.
His results were far below his previous level and also below the level of what might be expected of a world champion.
A month later, in a Chess 960 tournament in Germany, he lost 10 of 13 games.
(Chess 960 is a variant in which the pieces on the back ranks are shuffled into one of 960 possible starting configurations.)
Persons:
Ding Liren, Gukesh, Ding, Ian Nepomniachtchi
Locations:
Singapore, China, Netherlands, Germany