Astana, Kazakhstan - The World Chess Championship officially kicked off on Friday, and on Sunday, the first moves of the competition were made. However, the reigning world champion and world's best-known chess player from Norway Magnus Carlsen was not in attendance. Instead, the next world champion will be decided in a duel between Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi and China's Ding Liren.

Since Carlsen was crowned the champion for the first time in 2013, no one has been able to beat him in a World Championship match. The Norwegian also leads the Elo list – comparable to a world ranking – with 2,852 Elo points, ahead of "Nepo" and Ding.

The original plan was for Carlsen to play the winner of the 2022 Candidates Tournament in 2023, but the champion declared last summer that he lacked the motivation to defend his title.

Thus, the world chess federation FIDE decided that the winner of the Candidates Tournament and the runner-up would decide the world champion between themselves.

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Nepomniachtchi is not contesting the world championship duel under the Russian flag because he distanced himself from the Ukraine war in an open letter.

His opponent Ding Liren is the first Chinese chess player to make it to a World Championship final.

Game one between Nepomniachtchi and Liren on Sunday ended in a draw after 49 moves and nearly five hours.

A maximum of 14 games of classical chess will be played, but it's quite possible that the winner will be decided earlier. In 2021, for example, Carlsen won early against Nepo with 7.5:3.5.

The time control mode is special: the players have 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 60 minutes for another 20 moves.

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From move 61, there are an additional 15 minutes for the remaining moves and 30 seconds per move, so that complicated endgames can be fought out accordingly.

The prize money will be just shy of $2.2 million. Roughly $1.3 million will go to the winner, and nearly $900,000 will go to the loser of the match. If the match is decided after the 14 games in the tiebreak, the prize money ratio will be roughly $1.2 million to just shy of one million dollars.

The games of the World Chess Championship will be broadcast on all the relevant chess websites in the world, with commentary by grandmasters.

At Chess.com, Fabiano Caruana, Carlsen's former World Championship final opponent and current seventh in the world rankings, is amongst those offering his expertise.