World Chess Championship 2024 – the ratings

The World Chess Championship 2024 – Gukesh vs Ding Liren is set to take place between November 25 and December 13, 2024, in Singapore. This event will feature a match between the reigning world champion, Ding Liren from China, and the challenger, Gukesh Dommaraju from India, to determine who will be the World Chess Champion 2024.

Ding Liren’s rating has been suffering ever since he won the World Chess Champion title against Ian Nepomniachtchi. He reached his peak rating in November 2018, when he was 2816 elo and ranked 4th in the world. Since January 2023, Ding Liren started active preparation for the World Championship match and his rating started falling with every event played. But even after the World Chess Championship match, and despite low activity, he continued to lose rating points. This year he finished in the bottom half of the table of Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024 with a score of 6/13 (+2−3=8), in Norway Chess 2024 Ding scored 3,0/10 (+0 =6 -4), and in the Chess Olympiad 2024 he finished with a score of 3,5/8 (+0−1=7). As a result his rating went from 2780 to 2728, which will be the rating he starts with in the World Chess Championship 2024. It is also the lowest rating Ding Liren has had in the past 10 years.

The rating of Gukesh is with the opposite trend. Since August 2016, when Gukesh was only 10 years old and rated 1974 elo, the trend has been constantly up, with isolated exceptions. Only on three occasions Gukesh has had two consecutive months of rating decline, and even those can be defined more as temporary rating stagnation. In 2024 Gukesh has been brilliant. In Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024 he scored 8.5/13 to finish in a 4-way tie for first place. In the 2024 Candidates Tournament Gukesh won the first place with 9/14, while in the Chess Olympiad 2024 he won double gold and scored the second highest ever performance. This put him in position to attack 2800 , but a shaky European Club Cup left him at 2783 elo.

World Chess Championship 2024 Countdown
33 days remaining Ding Liren considers the favorite for the World Chess Championship 2024
32 days remaining Gukesh about the World Chess Championship chances
31 days remaining Anish Giri about the World Chess Championship
30 days remaining Happy birthday to Ding Liren
29 days remaining Promo video of the World Chess Championship 2024

Interesting fact

Gukesh and Ding Liren played together in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024. Despite Gukesh shining and finishing tied for first place, while Ding trailing in the bottom half of the table, one of the few wins Ding Liren achieved was exactly against Gukesh. This was a repeat of the score from the Tata Steel Chess 2023. More about Gukesh – Ding Liren games here