Bengaluru: It’s a little bit of a bizarre chess ritual if you consider it. Two gamers who’ve spent the final couple of hours making an attempt to destroy one another, sit on the similar desk moments later, peel off the scabs and inform the world how they really feel. The victor and the vanquished share a joint deposition.
India’s D Gukesh (R) and China’s Ding Liren (L) and American Chess Grandmaster Maurice Ashley throughout a press convention. (PTI)
Whereas this apply is a part of main chess tournaments such because the eight-player Candidates occasion, it seems probably the most pronounced within the World Championship – the place it’s simply two gamers in a gladiatorial combat for chess’ final prize who seem collectively to deal with the press after each recreation. It’s obligatory based on Fide tips for the match and failing to indicate up can result in 10% of earnings being docked.
It’s additionally a second of reality. After a few hours of duelling towards one another in a soundproof bubble, with nothing however their instincts, calculation and preparation, they emerge to be confronted by each tactic they ignored, each miniscule alternative they missed. After Recreation 5, for example, Ding Liren walked in for the press convention, content material with the short draw, solely to be informed by everybody else within the room, his opponent and the laptop computer on the desk providing crude analysis – that he had a bonus and will have pushed for a win. It should really feel like a chilly bathe from hell. Chess gamers are solely too used to it. “I didn’t see the idea with 28…Rc8… I didn’t realise that it was a big advantage for me,” stated the reigning world champion.
Over the 15-odd minutes of addressing the press collectively, they dissect and clarify why they did what they did to their opponent — each the thick-headed strikes and moments of genius, how their opponent might have bludgeoned them and what impact it had on them. All, with their opponent sitting beside them.
A contact far-fetched maybe however it reminds one of many notorious “brain-eating” scene the place Hannibal Lecter picks out a portion of Paul Krendler’s mind with a scalpel (Krendler can really feel nothing), sautes it in a skillet, and calmly feeds it to him.
The press convention isn’t the one time each gamers focus on how they might have made one another’s lives extra hellish on the board. After a recreation, the gamers typically select to go over the strikes with one another, like Gukesh and Ding did after their fast 23-move attract Recreation 2. It’s a curious train – gamers who sit throughout from one another, barely make eye contact and go for one another’s throats for a few hours, on the finish focus on what they might have carried out higher.
Throughout the hours that they’re locked in battle, whereas each gamers run calculations of their head and attempt to recall transfer orders from a large number of others crammed in reminiscence, everybody else has the posh of pc engines which inform them the very best strikes instantly. 5-time world champion Viswanathan Anand’s well-known, “No, I was thinking about what to have for dinner,” when requested if he had calculated by the assorted permutations, springs to thoughts. It was throughout his 2013 World Championship match in Chennai towards Magnus Carlsen.
In his e book Thoughts Grasp, Anand wrote about discovering the drill of post-game press conferences in a match going down in his hometown, the place he was removed from his finest, to be fairly torturous: “Here I was, having to painfully sit through post-game press conferences… explanations being sought for my moments of brain fade. It was humiliating. I tried to close my eyes and pretend that it was happening to someone else.”
Throughout the 2016 match between Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin, after seven successive attracts, the match lastly noticed a decisive outcome. A breakthrough victory for Karjakin in Recreation 8. Carlsen was visibly aggravated when he arrived for the post-game press convention. He waved his arms, received up and left the room earlier than his opponent arrived. Karjakin went on to deal with the press by himself.
Generally the character of questions could be uncharitable. Ian Nepomniachtchi was requested after Recreation 9 within the 2021 match, for example, if he’d received himself a haircut “out of shame”, just like the Samurais did after a defeat. Or when Carlsen, after a win, was requested if he felt sorry for his opponent. Nepomniachtchi wore a pained smirk on the suggestion. “Well, it’s a World Championship,” Carlsen replied. The unsaid bit – there’s no room for mercy.
Within the remaining press convention after Ding was topped world champion in 2023, as he struggled to course of his pleasure and rush of feelings, Nepomniachtchi sat on the different finish of the desk – devastated at his second failed try on the title. He had his head resting on the desk, on his arms, ready for the ordeal of inquiries to blow over. “With this tournament, a huge piece of my life – all of the preparation, all of the work – has finished,” he stated as his opponent of three weeks spoke of by no means having dreamt of changing into world champion.
After Recreation 5 each Ding and Gukesh have been requested to select their opponent’s favorite recreation from the previous. Ding scratched his brow, and choosing no recreation specifically, stated he discovered Gukesh’s duels with fellow Indian R Praggnanandhaa, spectacular. Gukesh had little bother selecting his favorite recreation of his opponent (Bai Jinshi vs Ding, Chinese language Chess League, 2017). “I think it was his best game,” stated Gukesh, as Ding smiled. “As a kid, I really enjoyed it.”
And now, they need to discover a technique to run swords by one another within the match.