That's quite true. The world champion is officially the best player, though people aren't required to salute that.

<Getting through the candidates cycle and taking the FIDE crown is a big component, with ratings being another component.>

That's also true, although ratings are a measure of recent results, not of playing strength. Ding's peak rating is 2816. That's his real strength, or closer to it than his current rating, at least.

<For "professional" chess, I personally like to factor in prize-money won from events as a third component.>

Which is why I specified prize-money as the metric that I use as it ties directly to a performance-outcome-success metric to indicate the "best".

No, there isn't. The rating system isn't a measure of strength, only of recent results. The designers of the system itself have said that till they were blue in the face, but people ignore it. It's Asimov's Culture of Ignraonce in action.

I remember years back, before Anand won the title, and a bunch of his fans I knew were really upset because Anand had failed to catch Topalov, who had come out 1 point higher in the most recent rating list. They really thought that meant he was 1 point a "better" player than Anand.

<"Asimov's Culture of Ignorance" refers to a concept described by science fiction author Isaac Asimov, where he argues that a significant portion of American society actively promotes and embraces ignorance, often viewing intellectual pursuits with suspicion and considering "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge" as a democratic right, essentially creating a "cult of ignorance.".>

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/45...

It's from a short essay he wrote in 1980, available here:

https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uplo...

Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have referenced that, but it is an odd essay. He makes some good points, but a lot of it is that he's still angry, almost a quarter century later, that Adlai Stevenson wasn't elected, and seemed to feel that since Stevenson was better educated that should automatically make him a better President.

I've seen some bizarre examples of his principle in action over the years, though. Before Y2K, we were talking to someone online who insisted that the 21st century began on January 1, 2000. We managed to get the mathematical principle across that a new century actually began at the END of 2000, rather than the beginning. But she still thought it should be considered to start at the beginning of the year because so many people believed it, as if you could just vote on the answer to math problems.

(1) A KING GRIND DING

Final position. Gukesh has just played 58...Kd5-e5.

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If Ding had resigned after playing his 58th move then arbiter may have played 58...Ke5 and it would have registered before placing the White King on d4 stopping transmission.

The final set up

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