2024 Ding Liren - Gukesh, the Players

The first World Championship match between two Asian players -- both representing Asian powerhouses, chess and otherwise -- starts in a week. What can we say about the players? On this blog I featured Ding Liren in:-

• 2022-07-20: An Accidental Challenger • 'Ding Liren's participation [in a World Championship match] is about as accidental as things get in the real world.'

On my main blog I followed this some time later with a short series:-

• 2023-03-17: Ding Liren's Climb to a Title Match • 'Before past title matches I've used a few posts to learn something about [the] challenger for a particular match.'
• 2023-03-24: Ding Liren's TWIC Debut
• 2023-03-31: Ding Liren's Rise to the GM title
• 2023-04-07: Ding Liren's 2010-11 TWIC-ipedia
• 2023-04-14: Ding Liren's 2022 Candidates

I'll start a similar series for Gukesh in a few days. In the meantime, here's a comparison of the players' rating progress over the last five years. The following composite chart is from FIDE's 'Rating Progress Chart' showing the last five years for both players. For the full view of the same players, see:-

• Ding Liren (ratings.fide.com)
• Gukesh D (ditto)

X-axis: 2020-Jan to 2024-Dec
Y-axis: Ding Liren 2840-2720; Gukesh 2800-1900

The first part of the chart coincides with the covid-19 pandemic that prevented many chess tournaments from taking place. Since then Ding's rating has been in a downtrend, Gukesh's rating in an uptrend. That's one reason why so many pundits favor Gukesh to win the match.