Ding Liren

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ding Liren

• Ding Liren is a Chinese chess player, who won the World Chess Championship in 2023. He is the first Chinese and 17th world chess champion.

• When he was 4 years old, his mother and her friends decided to take their children to a chess club for learning chess. First, he started to play chess as a hobby; however later, it turned into his passion.

  

• He was named Liren by his parents, which is a word from his parents’ favourite saying of Confucius.

• In an interview, while talking about how he started his career in chess and took it to the next level by participating in Li Chengzhi Cup every year, he said,
  

  Every year in summer and winter vacations I would participate in the Li Chengzhi Cup when I was young. It’s the strongest tournament for teenagers. I performed very well and won it every year. I played in all the age categories — under-10, 12, 14, and so on. I participated in this tournament until I was 18 or 19. The Li Chengzhi Cup helped me to grow up into a strong chess player, to develop my chess skills, to fight with other players from different provinces in China.”

• He began to participate in Li Chengzhi Cup every year in his teenage.

• In 2003, he scored 9½/11 points at U-10 World Youth Championship in Heraklio.

• In April 2004, he took part in the Chinese Men’s Team Championship and scored 1/4. In the same year, he secured the second position at U-12 World Youth Championship.

• In October 2009, he became the 30th grandmaster of China.

• In 2009, he won the Chinese Chess Championship for the first time when he was 16 years old and became the youngest man to do so.

• In September 2017, he received a cash prize of $80,000 after he became the runner-up of the Chess World Cup.

  

• In 2019, he won the Sinquefield Cup after defeating the then World Champion Magnus Carlsen in the playoffs.

• He earned a sum of $175,540 as cash prize money after he took part in 5 major chess tournaments in 2022.

• In 2023, he won a cash prize of €1.1m ($1.2m) after he won the World Chess Championship.

• He likes listening to Chinese folk music.

• In his leisure time, he likes to watch and play football.

• He is not a fan of playing video games as, according to him, playing video games is boring.

• On every international trip, he carries a cooking pot with him to cook porridge as he finds it hard to go out to eat at noon.

• As per the Chinese zodiac signs, his Chinese zodiac animal is ‘monkey.’

• His closest friend among chess players is the Chinese chess grandmaster Wei Yi.

• In an interview, he shared that whenever he received a cash prize, he gave all of the cash prize money to his mother as he lives a simple lifestyle. He said,
  

  I don’t need it. I don’t like to buy things that are expensive and luxurious. I like to live a simple life. Perhaps, sometimes I would like to visit a restaurant and eat some good food, but there too I try to make sure that it is not very expensive. You know when Wei Yi (Chinese chess grandmaster) was here we sometimes would just have instant noodles and we were very happy having that.”

• In 2018, when he was riding a bike, he fell off it and injured himself due to which he had to take back his name from the Altibox Norway Chess tournament. When he was on a bike ride with his father, he fell to the ground while taking a sharp turn and injured his leg; later in the hospital,m he found out that his hip was broken. Later on the same day, he was supposed to take part in a cook-off among top-notch chess players, and he was in the team of Indian chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand. He took part in the cook-off even after he was injured. During the cook-off, he was sitting on a chair the whole time and chopped vegetables, while Anand was in charge of the hollandaise sauce and the halibut filet. After the announcement of the results of the cook-off, Viswanathan Anand and Ding Liren were declared the winners.

  

• He is a travel enthusiast and had visited many countries, especially European countries, such as Scotland, Czechia, and Norway.

• In an interview, he shared how he spent his time on a regular day and said,
  

  I don’t like to make a plan for myself. I study chess when I feel like doing it. Usually, I wake up at 9 or 10 a.m. I cannot really go to sleep early at night. 1 a.m. is the normal time to go to bed for me. After waking up and having my breakfast I go through the games that have been played yesterday. I use ‘2700chess.com’ or ‘The Week in Chess’ to find games. If I get some interesting games I go through them and try to analyze deeper. Once I am done seeing the latest games, it’s usually time for lunch. I like to take some rest after lunch. I do some physical exercise in the evening or play basketball with my friends. After that, I play chess games online and often also follow the live league games that are being played. I also like football, so if there is a match that is being played I watch them. And before going to sleep I like to read a book or listen to some music. I think this is a normal day for me.”

• He faced defeat by Gukesh in the finals of the World Chess Championship on 12 December 2024.