Another question is also where to place Nepo. He won two Candidates and many other top tournaments. Should he be ranked behind Ding based on the rapid playoff, or is Nepo ahead because of having better results otherwise?
Leko had at age 25 won Linares, Dortmund, Wijk aan Zee, Candidates and also drawn a title match in classical. He is at 44th place. Should he be ranked ahead of or behind Ding and Nepo?
Most lists of this sort, as the one above, by default begin with all the World Champions and Morphy, should that make Ding certain of a place ahead of Topalov, Korchnoi, Keres, Caruana etc? Which World Champions, if any, should Ding Liren be placed ahead of?
Even if it remains to be seen which results Ding Liren will score as World Champion, he will be 31 this year. At that age Fischer had already retired, Karpov and Kasparov been the strongest active player for a decade, Kramnik and Anand won more than a dozen super tournaments, Carlsen done well enough to be placed second on the list above, etc.
Ding Liren has played few international tournaments this decade. He finished shared 5th and 2nd in Candidates, and shared 11th in Tata. Will people start to expect much better results of him because he is the World Champion? I think people rather should get used to the fact that World Champions do not have to be like Kasparov or Carlsen, I think it will be a very long time before someone reaches such levels of dominance again.
Even if it remains to be seen which results Ding Liren will score as World Champion, he will be 31 this year. At that age Fischer had already retired, Karpov and Kasparov been the strongest active player for a decade, Kramnik and Anand won more than a dozen super tournaments, Carlsen done well enough to be placed second on the list above, etc.
Ding Liren has played few international tournaments this decade. He finished shared 5th and 2nd in Candidates, and shared 11th in Tata. Will people start to expect much better results of him because he is the World Champion? I think people rather should get used to the fact that World Champions do not have to be like Kasparov or Carlsen, I think it will be a very long time before someone reaches such levels of dominance again.
People should expect but NOT ANTICIPATE much better results from him.
I am afraid the real discussion may go on to become if Ding's reach to zenith should be thought of as a fluke. You know, him even playing for the title was some kind of chance, Magnus forfeiting. Also, as he is ranked 3rd and if Magnus keeps on dominating the tournaments, I am well afraid he may end up being seen as someone like Max Euwe or "winter king"
”if Magnus keeps on dominating the tournaments, I am well afraid he may end up being seen as someone like Max Euwe”
Euwe is maybe underestimated as being ”the worst” World Champion on every list, but he did beat Alekhine, and then played four tournaments as World Champion, finishing 1st, 1st, 2nd and 3rd. He faced Alekhine in three tournaments as World Champion and finished ahead of him every time. Even if he then lost the title, that was to Alekhine. Not certain that Ding will score better results as World Champion than Euwe did.
I question the judgement of the people who made that list, which only very generally trends from best down. That said, Ding would be somewhere between maybe 5 and 20.
I don't think you can make any argument that Nepo is better than Ding any more - and remember, before travel restrictions, Ding was dependably rated higher. I think Ding is still clearly better based on the play of the classical games in the championships - while the overall score was tied, I believe that also happened with Magnus with opponents who were clearly not as good as he was, and Ding reached more winning positions, and blundered less.
That WC match was rife with blunders, positional errors and poor evaluations of the position by both players. Anand should come out of retirement next cycle and show how it's done correctly. Champion for one cycle and Ding is done.
”Ding would be somewhere between maybe 5 and 20”
I think 5 sounds high. The list above has Karpov as #6 and then he was #1 for a decade and top two for more than 20 years. Also players like Alekhine or Capa that he would have to knock down to get into the top 5 had incredible results for decades. This far I don’t see Ding as having career achievements on a level comparable to them.
”I don't think you can make any argument that Nepo is better than Ding any more”
Ding did win that rapid game, but apart from that Nepo has a longer list of top results. It depends a bit on how one sees it. Nepo won the Candidates twice and has more wins than Ding also apart from that. Difficult to compare such things.
I disagree with the chess24 list, for example I think Rubinstein belongs above Caruana.
At the moment I would put Ding above Caruana, and below Tal. Somewhere around Tal and Spassky level. Say 17. But he has only just become World Champion. We cannot really place him in the pantheon of greats until we have seen whether he is successfully able to defend his title. I think he is able to grow even stronger, but only time will tell.
Our opinion of Ding Liren is also skewed due to living at a time while Carlsen remains World Number 1. If there was no Magnus Carlsen, Ding Liren would have a lot more plaudits.
Nepomniatchi is also at a similar level to Ding Liren. I think he belongs in the top 20, or at least in the top 25. I also think the criticisms about the number of mistakes were made according to Stockfish is overblown. You have to remember that Stockfish is above 3500 Elo strength. This is well above the level that any human is able to perform at.
Chess.com also did a similar analysis of top players a couple of years ago, although with a different methodology which favours the modern players over earlier generations: https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-best-chess-players-over-time
Ding and Ian are both very equal players, it was any bodys game, if they did it ten more times im sure nepo would win some
I disagree with the chess24 list, for example I think Rubinstein belongs above Caruana.
At the moment I would put Ding above Caruana, and below Tal. Somewhere around Tal and Spassky level. Say 17. But he has only just become World Champion.
Maybe they placed Caruana a few places too high, but that was closer to his match against Carlsen. He drew that match in classical, was only 3 Elo behind, and was clear #2 for years. His seven wins in a row streak in Sinquefield Cup was also closer, but then he didn’t score the expected results after the Carlsen match. But for a while he was basically the same level as Carlsen. Maybe he is a sign that your continued career achievements can make you fall on the list, not just go up. He was actually three years younger than Ding is today, and five years younger than Nepo, when Chess24 placed him ahead of not only Rubinstein, but also Korchnoi, Keres and Topalov.
”Chess.com also did a similar analysis of top players a couple of years ago, although with a different methodology which favours the modern players over earlier generations”
Yes, I saw that one and found some things strange. Ranking players based on objective playing strength is indeed tough on older players. Lasker was surely greater than Caruana even if the latter plays better according to engines. At least to me it’s more fun to speculate with regards to greatness than objective playing strength.
But also concerning objective strength there are some curious things. They have Kasparov’s best year as 2003, where he only played Linares and had his worst result there ever, in third place. Botvinnik’s best year as 1966 also looks dubious, as Lasker’s in 1920 when he hadn’t even played any games for a couple of years.
Ding Liren has played few international tournaments this decade. He finished shared 5th and 2nd in Candidates, and shared 11th in Tata. Will people start to expect much better results of him because he is the World Champion? I think people rather should get used to the fact that World Champions do not have to be like Kasparov or Carlsen, I think it will be a very long time before someone reaches such levels of dominance again.
Ding has clashed with Carlsen many times - and gotten the upperhand.
In 2019, Ding and Carlsen faced off in the finals of the Sinquefield Cup. Ding crushed Carlsen 2 games in a row, to win the tournament.
Magnus Carlsen Invitational (2020) - Ding beat Carlsen 4 to 3, with 1 draw.
Ding won 3 to 2 against Carlsen (with 5 draws) in the 2021 Goldmoney Asian Rapids.
In 2022, Ding faced Carlsen in the semifinals of the Chessable Masters, in a best-of-4 match. Ding eliminated Carlsen.
Chess24 even described Ding as "more successful than anyone else in the world ... at drawing blood against Magnus" ...
When Magnus was still undecided about whether or not he would participate in this year's WC, he mentioned that Ding Liren would be, in his opinion, his toughest potential opponent ...
So lets look at who's definitely greater than him.
The 16 World Champions before him + Morphy.
The players who were at the top for a prolonged period of time, had many notable tournament wins and often came close to the title = Tarrasch, Rubinstein, Keres, Korchnoi, Topalov, Aronian, Caruana.
That's already 24. I don't see any reasonable argument, based on greatness, and not objective strength, for Ding to be in the top 25 all time.
He probably belongs in the third tier of greats alongside the likes of Pillsbury, Bogoljubov, Geller, Portisch, Polugaevsky, Ivanchuk etc.
From this era, I don't think he particularly stands out among the likes of Vachier-Lagrave, Mamedyarov, Nepomniachtchi, Nakamura and So.
So probably top 50, I guess? Honestly, if you want to include more pre-1886 greats in the discussion, there's an argument that he would be outside it.
Still plenty of time though, some big tournament wins and a couple of title defences could change this significantly.
”So probably top 50, I guess? Honestly, if you want to include more pre-1886 greats in the discussion, there's an argument that he would be outside it”
Yes, it’s tough competition when Candidates winners like Short and Shirov miss out on top 50, as well as eight times Russian Champion Svidler. Short won a Candidates match against Karpov as well as some very strong tournaments with players like Kasparov present.
At the same time people by default usually place the World Champions plus Morphy in the top. But when you look at for example someone like Topalov, with dozens of super tournament wins, and longer time as #1 than Anand and Kramnik, it feels wrong to place him behind Ding Liren at the moment.
”Ding has clashed with Carlsen many times - and gotten the upperhand. In 2019, Ding and Carlsen faced off in the finals of the Sinquefield Cup. Ding crushed Carlsen” etc
He has done better than Carlsen in some blitz and online events, but then he isn’t alone to have done that. He never won against Carlsen in classical chess, but probably has one of the best scores against him of all current top players.
”Ding would be somewhere between maybe 5 and 20”
I think 5 sounds high. The list above has Karpov as #6 and then he was #1 for a decade and top two for more than 20 years.
Karpov was the exact reason I was tempted to say 5 at first. Karpov, like Ding, won the world championship only when the best player in the world declined to defend the title. There's an argument that Karpov was never actually best in the world. And while Karpov was excellent at not losing, Ding shows strong signs of being better at winning.
How would you after the title match rank World Champion Ding Liren among the greatest players ever? Here is a top 50 list made by the GMs at Chess24, where would you squeeze in Ding?
1.Kasparov
2.Carlsen
3.Fischer
4.Lasker
5.Alekhine
6.Karpov
7.Capablanca
8.Botvinnik
9.Anand
10.Morphy
11.Kramnik
12.Petrosian
13.Steinitz
14.Smyslov
15.Tal
16.Spassky
17.Euwe
18.Philidor
19.Caruana
20.Korchnoi
21.Topalov
22.Keres
23.Rubinstein
24.Staunton
25.Bronstein
26.Anderssen
27.Zukertort
28.Labourdonnais
29.Larsen
30.Reshevsky
31.Bogoljubov
32.Fine
33.Aronian
34.Tarrasch
35.Ivanchuk
36.Schlechter
37.Pillsbury
38.Geller
39.Gelfand
40.Chigorin
41.Timman
42.Najdorf
43.Winawer
44.Leko
45.Maroczy
46.Kamsky
47.Polugaevsky
48.Portisch
49.Karjakin
50.Nimzowitsch
https://chess24.com/en/learn/advanced/video/hall-of-fame-the-50-greatest-chess-players-of-all-time/intro-50-great-players