The number two Chinese chess player retires because of stress

“What else could I do, not play professionally,” Vuong said FIDE. “Because I have health problems. I don’t think I can continue in this career. I will coach, I will invest, but I can’t work and face too much stress.”

When asked if he announced his retirement from chess, Vương said: “Yes. Exactly. I won’t be playing professional chess anymore. I wouldn’t mind playing some friendly matches or commenting on television. In terms of professional chess, I quit completely.

Vuong won 5 points after 14 games and was last at Candidates – the tournament selected the winner of Magnus Carlsen’s Chess King. Ian Nepomniachtchi became the challenger with 8.5 points.

Vuong was surprised when he asked to lose early when he met Nepomniachtchi in game 12 on April 24. At that time, his position had not yet fallen into a losing stance, according to the computer’s evaluation. After the battle, Wang said: “I am too tired and cannot calculate anything”.

The challenger Nepomniachtchi also revealed that he was unable to sleep well during the first stage of the tournament. He said that in the game Kirill Alekseenko, he had to be too tired to suggest a draw early.

Robert Sapolsky – professor of stress research at Stanford University – once said in the program TED Talk that: “A player can burn 6,000 calories per day in a tournament, three times the energy consumption of a normal person”.

Wang, 31 years old, ranks 12th in the world and second in China. He achieved a peak Elo of 2,763 in October 2020, and became the second player in Chinese history to win a spot in the Candidates’ spot thanks to the FIDE Grand Swiss 2019 championship. He is also a frequent visitor at HDBank international chess tournament, with two championships in 2016 and 2019.

Xuan Binh