As 2024 comes to a close, I feel a desperate sense of dread that I imagine most people start experiencing when they “grow older”. It’s a feeling that I’m running out of time, running out of opportunities to become who I was meant to be.
I turned 21 this year. Many people will say, and have told me, that 21 is still incredibly young. And for the most part, I agree with them.
At the same time, turning 21 is the culmination of a change everyone experiences between high school and now. In high school, people said the same things about how I’m such a smart kid, and how I’ll do great things. It’s hard not to look at myself now, and imagine who I could have been by this point.
Now, I feel another small part of my inner child dying as I watch as my peers graduate university and go on their own journeys. We are no longer on the same path, as I naively thought we would be; as I imagine all children believe it to be.
Up until this point, I’ve mostly gone through this process as a bystander - merely watching as parts of my core belief system have cracked and crumbled until it became difficult to recognize what was underneath. And maybe I would have continued doing so, until being inspired by someone who truly embodies the youthful spirit that I myself have misplaced.
It’s common in sports, and in life, to root for the underdog. Everyone loves an underdog story, because it shows that anyone, regardless of previous expectations, experience, or capability, has the potential to overcome their own limitations.
But I’ve never rooted for the underdog. For me, I always felt that it would be tragic for the favourite to be defeated, despite every expectation that they would win. Maybe that’s because I have always expected myself to succeed, and saw myself as the metaphorical favourite.
I’ve come to realize that having these expectations is part of the reason why one can end up losing. One’s technical prowess or ability is, for the most part, irrelevant, when they have a poor mindset.
Many examples in the sports I watch back up this example. Table tennis is dominated by Chinese players because 1) there’s a far larger player pool, and 2) it’s a national sport that kid start training for when they are 2 yrs old.
For the most part, Chinese players win every table tennis competition they enter. This pattern has led to an expectation that they will always win - from their coaches, from the fans, maybe even from themselves. And you can clearly see when this expectation brings them down.
Take the 2024 Paris olympics, where world no.1 Wang Chuqin, who had dominated every single tournament for the past 9 months, lost in the men’s singles round of 32 to Truls Moregard, who he had never lost to. For Truls’ credit, he played magnificently, but he didn’t win the match more than WCQ lost it.
This happened in the men’s team final as well, where China had world no.1, 2, and 3 VS sweden, who’s highest rated player was world no.25. China still won that match, sole because their players are just flat-out better. But the match was far closer than it should’ve been - every single individual matchup ended 3-2 in favour of China.
Of course, the Chinese coaches, fans, and players are aware of this pressure, which is why they purposefully select players who can withstand that pressure in the critical moments. In their minds, champions are those who deliver when it matters.
While I don’t disagree with those claims, I also believe that there’s a far simpler long-term solution - to stop viewing yourself as the favourite, and start viewing yourself as the underdog.
By nature, underdogs have nothing to lose, which means that they can play to the best of their ability and have no shame if they lose. But the favourite’s have everything to lose, which mean that they stop trying to play their best, and they start trying to not lose.
You may have realized at this point that the root cause of this phenomenon is the inherent nature of comparing oneself against others. One can supercede this entire dynamic by never comparing oneself against their peers, and only comparing oneself against an abstract future self. This way, one always remains the underdog.
While I do advocate for this level of nirvana, I have little confidence that it can be maintained for most people. We live in a society where comparison is rampant, and it eventually rubs off on you.
Anyways, I’ll come back to what I believe is the best way to compare oneself at the end. For now, let’s continue with the consequences of comparison.
You can see this pressure on the Chinese players in every moment. They make unforced errors that they would never make in any other time. They play passively, seemingly just trying to survive shots from their opponent that they easily countered just a few months before. Even their body language screams, “I don’t want to be playing right now, let me just get this over with.”
The fact that Chinese players win so many championships isn’t because their mindsets are better, it’s because the skill gap is so large that it compensates for this mindset. But as the skill gap closes, more and more cracks are showing. Chinese players used to win almost every tournament; if 4 Chinese players entered a tournament, the final 4 would be Chinese (assuming they didn’t eliminate each other before).
In the last few tournaments, we’ve seen a lot more diverse flags than we’re used to. I believe that trend will continue.
Seeing this unfold, I should’ve taken a hint and adjusted my own mindset. But it wasn’t until I saw one of my heroes in action that I set it to heart.
In 2019, Ding Liren was one of the top contenders for the world chess championship. Many viewed him as one of the most dangerous threats to Magnus Carlsen, the reigning world champion. Even Magnus believed so, after Ding handed him his first loss in tiebreaks in a decade. In 2018, Ding had also famously set the record for the longest unbeaten streak in chess at 100 games.
After Ding won the world chess championship in 2023, things quickly went downhill. His story as a world champion was already tumultuous - he wasn’t even supposed to compete for the title until Magnus stepped away from the title. From the beginning, there were whispers everywhere about how Ding wasn’t a “real world champion.”
Ding’s performance in the next year did not help those rumours. He started losing game after game in every tournament in played. His fellow top players all publicly commented, “this isn’t the same Ding as before.” His world ranking dropped from a high of no.2 in the world to no.23. No world champion had ever dropped out of the world’s top 20 in live rankings before.
The reasons for Ding’s decline were not obvious, but in a few interviews he had revealed he had been diagnosed with clinical anxiety, and was struggling with his mental and physical health. Afterwards, he stopped playing in tournaments for months.
So when it came time for Ding to defend his title, people were skeptical. By that point, any of the top 20 players in the world would be considered a favourite in a match against Ding.
But his challenger was none other than Gukesh Dommoraju, an 18-year-old Indian superstar who had won the Candidates tournament (the winner of which faces the world champion in a match) ahead of the world’s number 2, 3, and 4. He then won individual gold in the chess olympiad against the number 1 ranked players of every other country, leading India to win the olympiad for the first time.
Everyone expected the match to be a complete blowout. But Ding surprised everyone, including myself, when he won their first game (out of 14). This was his first classical game win in almost a year.
Gukesh evened the score in round 3, and then they drew the next 7 games. In each game, a common theme was evident - Gukesh was far better prepared than Ding was, and so he put Ding under massive time pressure in every game. Ding would often spend over half of his time on the first few moves, while Gukesh was blitzing out his engine preparation. But after Ding finally understood the position, he would defend a slightly worse position and just get away with it every time.
By game 11, Gukesh broke through. Ding went so low on time that he made a 1-move blunder in an already difficult position. Everyone believed that the match was over - Gukesh would just cruise to victory.
Ding showed up the next day, and, in Gukesh’s words, “he destroyed me.” He played an engine-perfect game where he left Gukesh with no chances to equalize.
By this point, a few things were clear about the match.
Gukesh had done far more preparation than Ding had. Gukesh had assembled a team of 20+ grandmasters to prepare lines in every opening possible, and in every game, Ding was left to navigate the mess while Gukesh already knew how to play.
Ding was good at chess. It seems silly to say, but Ding showed that he can indeed navigate Gukesh’s prep and play him to a draw. In my mind, this indicates that Ding is just flat-out better than Gukesh in terms of pure chess ability. He was able to equalize almost every slightly worse position that Gukesh put him in.
Gukesh wanted to win. He really wanted to win. He would continue to play out dead-drawn positions just to search for a win - sometimes he would purposefully make his position worse just to prolong the game.
Ding was playing to not lose. In 3 to 6 games, depending on how you count, Ding had a very healthy advantage when he settled for a drawl; he had fought back and gained a great position, and then happily settled for a half point.
After game 13, when Ding defended his worse position of the entire match (by far), and drew the game, many people started to shift, saying Ding was now the favourite. He now had the white pieces against Gukesh, and only needed a draw to take the match to tiebreaks. Gukesh is famously (or infamously) much weaker in quicker time controls, so most believed that if the match went to tiebreaks, Ding would have great chances.
Ding started off game 14, and by the midgame he had perhaps his largest advantage of the entire match (in the midgame). But then he made a decision that, in the moment, I couldn’t understand whatsoever. He started trading off pieces to settle for a draw. But he did so in a way where he went from being up a pawn to being down a pawn. It was still a dead-drawn position, but there was no need for him to put himself on the backfoot.
Gukesh noticed this shift and pounced. He continued putting the pressure on Ding’s clock, even in a dead-drawn position. And then suddenly, with a few minutes on the clock, Ding made a 1-move blunder and was completely lost. It was a mistake that he wouldn’t have made in any other situation, but whether it was fatigue, desperation, or sheer oversight - he made it and lost the game, and the world championship.
It took my a while to process this match, partly because it lasted for 3 weeks, and partly because it resonated with my internal struggle.
Ding didn’t lose because he was a worse chess player; if anything, Ding is now clearly better than chess than Gukesh. No, Ding lost because his mindset was weaker. He was less ambitious in every game, and constantly underestimated his position. He couldn’t regulate his emotions - he was shaking at the board at almost every game. And he wasn’t trying to win - he was trying to not lose.
Gukesh, on the other hand, was fighting to win every single game. He was calm, even when he was playing objectively poorer chess. And he really, really wanted to win.
I thought to myself - imagine if Ding didn’t underestimate himself so much, or if he just prepared a little more (Ding started preparing for the match only 3 weeks before, while likely Gukesh started 7-8 months before), or if he just wanted to win a tiny bit more. He most likely would have saved 2 of the games he lost, and been crowned champion.
Obviously, mental health is never trivial and I know from experience that simply putting effort towards solving does not guarantee results. But if anything, Ding proved that despite his other shortcomings, he has such chess ability that he could play Gukesh to 14 games and only lose due to his own oversight. Imagine how good he could be if he can overcome his health issues altogether.
If it hasn’t become clear by now, I see myself in Ding. I’ve always been told by others of how smart I am, and frankly speaking, most things have indeed come easy to me. But I know that I am nowhere near as talented as Ding is. If even he is unable to compensate for his shortcomings in other areas with his talent, then I definitely cannot either. It’s a testament to just how good he is that he has come so far even despite the odds against him.
Now that a few weeks have passed, I can say that it is actually Gukesh that I must learn from. He did everything right - he prepared diligently months in advance, he fought for a win at every opportunity, and he was focused in his ambition. He wanted to become world champion.
These are ideals that I’ve realized I vehemently lack. Maybe I had them before, maybe I didn’t. And for the reasons that I currently lack them…that’ll take another essay. But I know that if I do not adjust my mindset in these areas, that I will always be limited from who I can truly be. And that terrifies me.
I’m writing this on New Years Eve, and I’ll publish it right as I finish writing it. I’ve written it in one go, and I don’t plan on proofreading. I don’t really believe in New Years resolutions, so I’d like to frame this as more of a reminder for myself.
Maybe it’s time for me to step back, and think critically about my health. I have tried to deny that this is the part of myself I need to work on, mostly because it’s just really f***ing difficult to start accepting and working on it. But Ding’s example lays it out plain and clear. I can procrastinate on changing, but that is only doing a disservice to myself.
I should let go of my expectations for myself, because after adjusting for my mindset weakness, I am far from the ‘favourite’ in any situation. I am now firmly the underdog. I still have some things to lose, but I have so much more to gain.
I’m excited for my future self to show my current self who he’s become
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