My guest in this week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast is Peter Heine Nielsen. Peter is an international grandmaster and a five-time Danish champion, but he is primarily known for his highly successful coaching career.

From 2007 till 2023, Peter Heine Nielsen was the coach of the reigning World Champion. First he worked for Vishy Anand and next for Magnus Carlsen. In that capacity, he was a winning coach in a World Championship match a record eight times.
After his match victory against Ian Nepomniachtchi, in Dubai in 2021, Magnus Carlsen decided that he would no longer defend his world title, but the Norwegian maintained the number one spot in the world rankings and continued to rely on Peter Heine Nielsen as his main coach.

It will not be easy to find someone with more world championship experience than Peter Heine Nielsen and that’s why I invited him to talk about the upcoming World Championship match between Ding Liren and Gukesh that will soon start in Singapore.
The first game will be played on November 25 at Resorts World Sentosa, a luxurious venue on an island off Singapore’s southern coast, connected to the city by road, cable car, pedestrian boardwalk and monorail.
The match is a best of 14 classical games. Once a player has scored 7,5 points, it’s over. In case of a 7-7 tie there will be tie-breaks with fast time controls.
The total prize fund in Singapore is a whopping 2.5 million euros. That amount will be distributed as follows: every win earns a player 200,000 euros, and the remainder of the prize fund will be equally split. In case of tiebreaks the winner will get 1.3 million and the loser 1.2 million euros.

As is always the case with world title matches, there’s a lot of anticipation. But at the same time everything is different, as the reigning champion keeps the experts guessing and speculating. From the moment he became World Champion by beating Ian Nepomniachtchi in Astana in 2023, Ding Liren has been struggling to find his best form. His recent results have been unimpressive and the Chinese star has dropped to 22nd place in the world rankings.
In the five classical events that he competed in after the match against ‘Nepo’, Ding played 49 games. Of those he only won 3, lost 10 and drew the rest.

In stark contrast, Gukesh has been going from strength to strength. After qualifying for the world title match in the Candidates tournament in Toronto earlier this year, he also went on a rampage at the Olympiad in Budapest, where he led India to gold with a stellar performance on first board.
Ding Liren’s performance at the Olympiad was 2664, Gukesh’s 3056. While Ding didn’t win a single game and lost one, Gukesh won 8 of his 10 games at the Olympiad, drawing the other 2.

In a lively conversation, Peter Heine Nielsen assesses the situation at the start of the match, analyzing Gukesh’s strengths and possible weaknesses and looking for glimpses of hope for Ding Liren. He admits that the situation looks gloomy for the Chinese champion, but speaking from his vast experience, he also stresses the special nature of world championship matches.
If you want to get into the mood for the match in Singapore and want to hear the insights of a true expert, you should not miss this episode of the New In Chess Podcast.

The New In Chess podcast is published every Friday and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and the New In Chess website.

Timestamps
0:00 – Intro
2:05 – What is Peter expecting from this year’s world championship match?
3:33 – Ding’s physical and mental state
8:40 – Ding’s deterioration over the past year, winning 3 out of 49 classical games
13:47 – Comparing Gukesh’s rise to the rises of Kasparov and Carlsen
16:50 – Ding’s strong competitive mindset, despite his mental health issues
21:02 – AD BREAK
21:35 – How should Ding’s team aid him in his preparation for Singapore?
25:59 – Ding’s friendship with Richard Rapport
31:53 – What will be the role of computer preparation in this match?
37:00 – Could Gukesh’s confidence be his downfall?
40:30 – Could Ding be exaggerating his symptoms to make Gukesh underestimate him?
43:00 – AD BREAK
44:00 – Kasparov’s assertion that this is “not a world championship match at all”
50:22 – Peter’s love of freestyle chess, also known as Chess960 and Fischerandom
56:48 – Developments in chess in China and India
1:06:20 – So, what is Peter’s prediction for the match?