Ding Liren accused of 'deliberately' losing world chess championship to Gukesh

Russian Chess Federation chief Andrei Filatov has 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 into 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.”

Ding’s actions ‘extremely suspicious’

"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," he said.

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"Losing the position in which Ding Liren was is 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," he added.

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.

End of chess as we know it: Kramnik

Significantly, Filatov was not the only one expressing his dismay at Ding's blunder. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik was also 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”.

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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.

The 49-year-old Russian was the Classical world chess champion from 2000 to 2006. In 2000, Kramnik defeated the legendary Garry Kasparov and became the Classical world chess champion.