Ding Liren accused of losing world championship to Gukesh ‘deliberately’, Russian chess chief calls for investigation

Russian Chess Federation president Andrei Filatov accused Ding Liren of China of deliberately losing the World Chess Championship final to India’s D Gukesh. Ukrainian chess coach Peter Heine Nielsen shared a screenshot of a report published in the Russian news agency TASS, in which Filatov was quoted asking FIDE to launch a separate investigation on the final played between Ding and Gukesh in Singapore. Filatov said Ding’s blunder, which turned the last game in Gukesh’s favour, caused “bewilderment among professionals and chess fans.”

“The result of the last game caused bewilderment among professionals and chess fans. The actions of the Chinese chess player in the decisive segment are extremely suspicious and require a separate investigation by FIDE. Losing the position in which Ding Liren was in difficult even for a first class player. The defeat of the Chinese chess player in today’s game raises a lot of questions and looks like a deliberate one,” Filatov said, according to the agency.

The move in question came in the dying stages of the last game (14th) of the final, which was heading for a draw. Under time pressure during a tense endgame, Ding made a critical miscalculation. In his attempt to mobilize his king and rooks to force a draw, he inadvertently made a mistake. This move allowed Gukesh to simplify the position into a more advantageous setup, where his active pieces and better pawn structure ultimately led to victory.

Kramnik not happy with quality of final
Filatov was not the only one expressing his dismay at Ding’s blunder, which made Gukesh the youngest-ever world champion at 18. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was not impressed with the quality of chess on display in the final.

After the match, Kramnik expressed his frustration over the game’s quality, calling a critical blunder by Ding Liren “childish”.

In his reaction, Kramnik wrote on ‘X’, “No comment. Sad. End of chess as we know it.”In another tweet, he said, “Never yet has a WC title been decided by such a childish one-move blunder.”Kramnik had also criticised the level of play after game six of the championship, calling it “weak”.

“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,” he had said.