It was also extremely odd to me that there was no Chinese press there. Ding's English is not excellent, and to not be able to catch his first moments in his native tongue seems to have been a major failing of the Chinese press.

Ding was offered a translator but insisted on speaking English himself apparently!

"He said he didn’t need a translator since, “I feel very comfortable now,” " from https://chess24.com/en/read/news/ding-liren-passes-acid-test...

I've seen international competitions where the winner is interviewed by a reporter from their home country in their native language. It can often be a nice touch, and is very different from using a translator to speak to English speaking reports.

Chess isn't really big in China. Maybe will get more popular with Ding now but I'm not holding my breath.

Chess is huge in China. The women’s world champion and also number two are both Chinese.

You are right that Chess is not as popular as Go in China.

Norway is a small country (1/300th the population of China) with Magnus Carlson. Chess could be of interest to a small fraction of China and still produce champions.

Chess is not nearly as popular as Chinese chess (xiangqi) either.

Hard to take the WCC seriously when everyone know Carlsen would have won and just find the whole thing too boring to take part.

I don't see why that implies we shouldn't take it seriously. The world #1 didn't want to play, so we got a great match between the world #2 and #3 with some very interesting and complex games. Do you also think that Karpov shouldn't have been taken seriously as world champion?

I suspect Magnus would disagree.

Ding is in fact the sole player that can make this not statement not true, as he is a candidate with a known positive score against Magnus. A couple WCCs ago Magnus said Ding was the only player that he wasn't sure he could win against -- but that he wouldn't make it, after a poor showing in the candidates at the time.

Anyways, I don't know who would win in a Carlsen - Ding WCC. Nobody does. If the game statistics are to be believed, then Ding would.

Prior to previous championship match Nepo also had positive score vs Carlsen.

And Carlsen attended that match.

Ding has a losing record against Magnus in every time control.

Thanks for the correction. He had a winning record back when Magnus said that quote, and I didn't check the current standings.

What a horrible comment

How so? The eventual winner didn’t win the Candidates and the Candidates winner was crushed two years ago.

The whole thing is already hard to take seriously usually with the whole wild card thing and the format being criticised by approximately everyone.

He first voiced his discontent with the format around 13-15 years ago (he was #1 player by elo rating, but not yet the world champion), even skipping a cycle or two as protest. Afterward, he participated anyway and hold the title in fairly dominating fashion 10 years straight.

Maybe we should take his words at face value and that he really is fed up with the thing.

Considering how much happier he seems since he decided to forgo defending the title yeah, good chance he just doesn't want it or care about it anymore.

IMO good for him. He won it all and now he is doing new things with his life.

To further solidify this, Magnus crushed Ian in the last WCC 7.5 to 3.5.

I think most folks agree that Magnus is the best player in the world, but the WCC was far better with him not in it.

Magnus OP, ruins meta. needs nerf in next patch devs PLZ

don't hold your breath for that. Carlsen is 2853 and nobody else is above 2800 now.