Will Gukesh Be The Next FIDE World Champion? Here Are SmarterChess' Predictions

The 2024 FIDE World Chess Championship will showcase the current champion GM Ding Liren and 18-year-old rising star GM Gukesh Dommaraju. The match will take place at the Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore, the first world championship hosted in Southeast Asia since the 1978 match in Baguio, Philippines.

Ding Liren is defending his title after defeating GM Ian Nepomniachtchi in the 2023 FIDE World Chess Championship in the four-game rapid tiebreaker. Indian prodigy Gukesh Dommaraju won the 2024 FIDE Candidates Tournament to qualify as the World Championship challenger. Gukesh will be making history as the youngest challenger in a world championship match.

Gukesh's 2783 rating and Ding Liren's 2728 rank them 5th and 22nd on the FIDE live rating list, respectively. Each player has a claim to stake with this event. Ding would like to solidify his legacy by defending the title as a reigning world champion and to prove the doubters wrong. His rating fall from a peak of 2816 has many people concerned about his chances to defeat Gukesh. Gukesh on the other hand has been on a rapid ascent and is looking to become the youngest undisputed world champion ever.

A recent ChessGoals.com survey showed that 85% of members believe Gukesh will win compared to 15% who believe in the current champion.

• Prediction Methodology
• Classical Segment
• Rapid And Blitz Tiebreaks
• Simulations
• Conclusion

Prediction Methodology

To create the prediction, we first have to understand the parameters of the match.

• Classical: Like last year, the match will consist of up to 14 classical games. Once one player scores 7.5 points, he is crowned the winner.
• Rapid: If the match is tied after 14 games, a four-game rapid tiebreak with a 25+10 time control is played. If the match remains tied after the four 25+10 games, two 10+5 games will follow.
• Blitz: If the match is still tied after the rapid games, it goes to a two-game playoff blitz match with a 5+3 time control. If those games are tied, there will be another two-game blitz match. After this, single 3+2 blitz games are played until a decisive game is played.

We will run 1000 simulations for each segment above to determine the total odds that each player wins. But first, we must feed the models with predicted points per game and an estimated draw rate to run the simulations. Let's jump right in!

Classical Segment

From 2018-23, Ding Liren's rating was consistent in the 2780 to 2815 rating range. After the 2023 World Championship, he has seen his rating take a sharp nosedive down to 2728. Gukesh, on the other hand, has been extremely consistent in his rating rise, seldom taking a dip in rating yet in his career.

To build the prediction model, I analyzed data from the past 18 World Chess Championship matches, starting with the iconic 1985 clash between GM Garry Kasparov and GM Anatoly Karpov. 

The analysis incorporated player age, prior experience, head-to-head scores, player ratings, and other potentially interesting variables. While experience often correlates with success, current player ratings remain the strongest predictor of outcomes. Dominant champions like Kasparov, GM Viswanathan Anand, and GM Magnus Carlsen were consistently higher rated than their opponents.

Age has been less significant as a predictor, except in cases of a double-digit age gap, such as Kasparov vs. Karpov, GM Vladimir Kramnik vs. Kasparov, and Carlsen vs. Anand. The Ding-Gukesh matchup showcases a 13-year age gap, adding an interesting possibility to the analysis.

The strongest predictor remains FIDE ratings. For this match, based on ratings, I estimate Ding to score 0.442 points per classical game. If we add the potential double-digit age gap bonus into the models, Ding is expected to score only 0.377 points per game.

The next consideration is the draw rate, which is important in head-to-head matches with only 14 games. The historical draw rate since 1985 is 70%, but we should see more decisive games this time! Given the large rating gap between the players and the low average rating between the players, I expect a 65% draw rate.

Before seeing what this means for the simulations, let's discuss the tiebreak games.

Rapid And Blitz Tiebreaks

Given the numbers for the classical portion, the odds of the match ending in the classical portion are 87%, which should make the classical section more important than past world championship matches. Predicting the expected scores for these players in rapid and blitz is more difficult than in the classical segment. We have less data for Gukesh than I'd like and will have to make some heavier assumptions.

Ding has higher ratings than Gukesh in FIDE Rapid, FIDE Blitz, and Chess.com blitz. To stay conservative, I am estimating Ding will score approximately 0.55 points per game in both rapid and blitz tiebreaker games. The draw rates for rapid and blitz are about 50% and 25%, respectively.

Simulations

After running 1,000 simulations on the classical segment using only ratings, Gukesh wins 71.2% of the time, Ding 15.6%, with a tiebreaker in the final 13.2% of the outcomes.

Another 1,000 simulations with the age-bonus model included, accounting for the double-digit age difference, give Gukesh an astounding 93% chance to win the match in the classical segment! If he becomes the next dominant champion, there's a chance we see a blowout in this match.

Next, I ran another set of 1,000 simulations to calculate the probabilities of each player winning if the match extends to the rapid segment. The same approach was applied to analyze the blitz tiebreak scenarios.

Per segment odds

Gukesh has a 71% chance to win the match in the classical portion, and there's a 13% chance the match heads to the rapid portion. Breaking down the odds to win within that 13% chance, Gukesh is expected to win about 4.8% and Ding 7.6% in the rapid segment. Finally, the 0.8% chance it goes to blitz is close to a 50/50 split.

Odds to win at the start of the segment

An alternative way to look at the data is to list the odds of each player winning the match at the start of each segment type.

Conclusion

The odds for this match are about 82-18 in favor of Gukesh, which is turns out is quite close to the ChessGoals.com poll we mentioned at the start. I believe these are closer to the true odds than the 95-5 favorite that Gukesh is to win with the double-digit age bonus. If the match is won by three or more games, I am almost certain that Gukesh will be the winner.