Who will you be rooting for in the upcoming match: Ding or Gukesh?

I myself haven't made up my mind yet. On the one hand, Gukesh is strong and deserves to become world champion. In addition, he is young and it might motivate Magnus to get back into the game and fight for the title of world champion since he likes playing against prodigies. On the other hand, a quick title change may devalue the world champion title itself. What do you think about it all?

Does anyone have any thoughts on the subject?

I like Gukesh's style of play over Ding's, but that is about it.

I will admit I prefer Classical time controls in professional chess and have a strong distaste for matches being decided by blitz.

The actual strength difference between the top players are very small. In classical match play, that's when you see each player using their strengths and exploiting the opponent's weakness, it allows the players to formulate a match strategy. You don't get that anymore...

For me, these matches are of no entertainment value.

Because of Kasparov's rating, people like to think there was a huge difference between him and Karpov, yet it was only 4 games... Yes.... 4 games that decided those EPIC world championships matches.

I'm of the opinion the Chess World has been fooled by Carlson. I'll use Lasker to state my case, believing Lasker's impact on chess best mimics Carlson's. Lasker couldn't beat Capablanca in match play at the end of his career, yet performed very well in tournaments. I think Carlson vacated the thrown before someone figured out his weakness and could compete with him in match play. Several of the top players where getting close... it was going to happen.

The world got robbed of an epic match where the the king looses, maybe a rematch, maybe a comeback, maybe the challenger keeps the thrown, hence carving out his own legend etc ... we got robbed of a rivalry to say the least.

It appears Carlson's ego couldn't go through that... hence In my book, will go down as one of the least competitive WC in history.

Gukesh, a 18yr old Indian champ will be much better for chess than a washed up Chinese champ who's spent the last year trying to prove how undeserved he is on the title.

Gukesh will only get better, 2 years from now he could even be number 2. That would bring back some legitimacy to the title. I can't see Ding ever returning to even top 10 atm

The least competitive WC? I don't quite agree with that statement. Carlsen successfully defended the title four times unlike, for instance Tal or Euwe.

Good points!

I just think we have been robbed, all the greats played till someone came along that was better.

Were being denied a possible rivalry, a great comeback, a new ledgend in the making... all the things we chess fans love to talk about from Carlson walking away before his time.

but they lost their title after playing

carlsen abandoned it

disrespec tto such a big gtitle