Is Ding Liren secretly helping Wei Yi to beat Gukesh?

Is Ding Liren secretly helping Wei Yi to beat Gukesh?

November 23, 2025, Goa, India : China no. 1 grandmaster Wei Yi qualifies to the candidates after beating Russian opponent grandmaster Andrey Esipenko who have a tough task ahead to qualify for same. While the whole chess world is rejoicing the massive victory of Wei Yi, one of the top players of the world and an extremely deserving player to be a candidate, there is an underlying story of the former world chess champion, Ding Liren secretly helping his compatriot to regain the lost glory of his country.

Let's think about it. What can be the chances? Even though grandmaster D Gukesh deservingly won the world championship title, a massive part of the chess fandom don't give him the due credit only because the title was decided on one blunder, which most chess games are. Maybe its just for the pure love for Ding or the chess world just could not accept that an eighteen-year-old boy from Chennai, India who was yet to make his name in world elite is suddenly the world chess champion.

There has been massive debates and arguments and the internet is full of hungry critic wolves who are ready to pounce on every wrong move the Indian youngster makes. They just rip him apart, call him names, from undeserving to lucky, to even "The weakest world champion ever".

China as a country has dominated the chess world for the last few years. The women's world championship title has not left China for the past nine consecutive years which is remarkable and also to add the women's world no. 1 Hou Yifan has been world no. 1 since September 2015. The three-time world chess champion is considered one of the strongest players ever. After Ding won the title in 2013, both the world champions were from the same country which was just amazing and the country and all its fans would definitely like the title to retrurn.

So, it might not be a bad idea that the former world champion and one of the strongest players in the world secretly help Wei Yi in winning the candidates and challenge Gukesh for the world title. We also saw Ding Liren stream games of the world cup on a Chinese network and when Wei Yi was asked about it in a ChessBase India interview, this is what he replied - "I feel happy because he is my teammate and my good friend. It's very warm support to me."

So, to conclude we would like to believe that Ding is secretly helping Wei Yi and we hope we get to see him soon return to play at the world stage.

What do you think?

Written by Arteyo. A QuiqChess production.