World Chess Championship final 2024: Schedule, format, prize money, players

All the details about the biggest two weeks in the global chess calendar as a young Indian grandmaster takes on the Chinese world champion.

The attention of the world’s chess aficionados will turn towards Singapore from Monday, as the city-state gears up to host the International Chess Federation’s (FIDE) World Championship final 2024.

It will be an all-Asian affair as Chessmaster Ding Liren, the reigning world champion from China, takes on one of the most promising  young grandmasters, Gukesh Dommaraju of India.

Here’s everything you need to know about the final:

The final will take place from November 25 to December 13, 2024.

The four designated rest days will be on November 28, December 2, December 6 and December 10.

December 13 has been allocated for tie-breaks should the need arise.

It will be held at Resorts World Sentosa on Sentosa Island, Singapore.

Chinese grandmaster Liren is the reigning world champion, a title he earned in 2023 when he defeated Russian grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi in the World Championship final.

Liren rose to prominence in 2009 when, aged 16, he bagged his first Chinese Chess Championship as its youngest-ever winner. A year later, he broke into the top 10 FIDE chess rankings.

The 32-year-old from Wenzhou – a southeastern city with a history of producing chess champions – reigned the Chinese chess world from 2009 to 2016 and entered his first Candidates Tournament in 2017. Then he was part of the Chinese team at the Chess World Cup in the same year.

He qualified for the 2023 World Championship final as the runner-up of the Candidates Tournament behind grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, who abdicated his place as the winner.

By beating Nepomniachtchi in the 2023, final Liren became the first