Triveni Continental Kings enter finals @ GCL Mumbai
Defending champions Triveni Continental Kings assured themselves a spot in the finals pooling 21 match points after day 8 of the $ 1 million Global Chess League, a joint initiative of Tech Mahindra and FIDE, at the Royal Opera House, Mumbai. Sharing the second spot with 15 match points were Alpine SG Pipers. Sharing the third spot with 12 math points were PBG Alaskan Knights, Ganges Grandmasters and upGrad Mumba Masters.
In the four featured matches for the day, upGrad Mumba Masters lost to Alpine SG Pipers 7-8, Ganges Grandmasters lost to Triveni Continental Kings 5-14, FYERS American Gambits lost to Alpine SG Pipers 7-8, upGrad Mumba Masters lost to PBG Alaskan Knights 8-10.
The day started with upGrad Mumba Masters going down 7-8 in a close match against Alpine SG Pipers. It would turn out that Pipers would go on to win both their matches, while Mumba Masters unfortunately crashed twice by narrow margins. A black win by former women’s world champion Hou Yifan against current world rapid champion Koneru Humpy tilted the match in favor of Pipers.
Fortune favors the winner and it turned full circle in the final minute of the Ganges vs Kings encounter. Former world champion Vishy Anand missed equality going down in the last minute to GM Alireza Firouzja who could do no wrong in this tournament. Few meters apart IM Polina Shuvalova missed a mate in two going down to GM Zhu Jiner. “Two downside results in the final two minutes altered the match score,” felt Ganges Grandmasters captain GM Vishnu Prasanna.
FYERS American Gambits got pipped by a point going out of contention for the finals losing 7-8 to Alpine SG Pipers. Two time world blitz champion Assaubayeva lost her first game of the tournament to former women’s world champion Hou Yifan who shone bright winning both here games for Pipers. With the Kazakh Grandmaster tasting her first defeat, team FYERS American Gambits found itself out of the title race.
The upGrad Mumba Masters faced the music against PBG Alaskan Knights going down 8-10 in the final match of the day. Despite GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave winning the icon board against world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, Mumba Master failed to cross the line as lower boards pulled the Knights through. Wins by GM Dominguez and IM Sarasadat offset the prodigy board loss by GM Dardha.
The much hyped up prodigy match between GMs Daneshvar Bardiya and Daniel Dardha saw the Asian Champion coming out better, though his team succuumbed. In the crucial final round, upGrad faces Kings and should win on demand to progress further.
A novel points scoring system is used here, one that gives four game points for a win with Black and three game points for a win with White, which makes draws (1 game point) not that lucrative. The playing format remained unchanged, comprising six players in each team including two women and a junior player. Like the previous edition, the time control remains 20 minutes per player per game, but this time there is now an increment of two seconds per move after move 41.
With speed time control ruling the roost, most of the games went up to the very last second, producing several exhilarating moments. This mega & colorful event that has assembled the cream of all the top players in the world, runs from 14th to 23rd December, 2025. Global Chess League (GCL), a joint initiative of Indian giant Tech Mahindra and FIDE (International Chess Federation) is into its third successful edition having started off in Dubai 2023 followed by London 2024.
In the crucial final round matches FYERS takes on Ganges, Kings faces upGrad while Knights crosses swords with Pipers. For Kings, having qualified for the finals, it would be more like a practice match. For the rest it would be a must win situation followed by favorable tie-breaks.
Day 9 starts on Monday, 22nd December, by 5 AM ET / 11 PM CET / 3:30 PM IST.
Results (Day 8): upGrad Mumba Masters lost to Alpine SG Pipers 7-8 (MVL drew with Caruana, Wesley So drew with Giri, Mamedyarov drew with Pragg, Humpy lost to Hou Yifan, Harika drew with Batsiashvili, Bardiya beat Mendonca), Ganges Grandmasters lost to Triveni Continental Kings 5-14 (Vishy lost to Firouzja, Keymer drew with Wei Yi, Sindarov beat Vidit, Shuvalov lost to Zhu Jiner, Tsolakidou lost to Kosteniuk, Sadhwani drew with Maurizzi), FYERS American Gambits lost to Alpine SG Pipers 7-8 (Hikaru drew with Caruana, Artemiev drew with Giri, Rapport drew with Pragg, Assaubayeva lost to Hou Yifan, Teodora drew with Batsiashvili, Murzin beat Mendonca), upGrad Mumba Masters lost to PBG Alaskan Knights 8-10(MVL beat Gukesh, wesley so drew with Erigaisi, Mamedyarov drew with Dominguez, Humpy drew with Lagno, Harika lost to Sarasadat, Bardiya beat Dardha).
Viswanathan Anand (2727) – Alireza Firouzja (2754) 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nd7 4. O-O a6 5. Bxd7+ Bxd7 6. c3 Nf6 7. Re1 Bg4 8. h3 Bh5 9. d4 cxd4 10. cxd4 e6 11. d5 e5 12. Qb3 Be7 13. Nfd2 Nd7 14. Nc3 b5 15. Nf1 Nc5 16. Qc2 Rc8 17. a3 O-O 18. Be3 Bg6 19. Ng3 Qd7 20. f3 a5 21. Qd1 Bh4 22. Bf2 a4 23. Rb1 Nb3 24. Qd3 Rc4 25. Rbd1 Rfc8 26. Rf1 h6 27. Nge2 Nc5 28. Qd2 Bd8 29. Nc1 Ba5 30. N1a2 f5 31. exf5 Bxf5 32. Qe2 Nb3 33. Be3 Nd4 34. Qf2 Nc2 35. Bb6 Bxb6 36. Qxb6 Nd4 37. Nb4 Bxh3 38. Nc6 Nxc6 39. dxc6 R8xc6 40. Qb8+ Kh7 41. gxh3 Qxh3 42. Rd2 b4 43. axb4 a3 44. b5 Rc8 45. Qxd6 axb2 46. Qd3+ Kh8 47. Ne4 Rb4 48. Qb1?
48…Qxf1+ 0-1
Javokhir Sindarov (2704) – Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (2650) 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6 5. d3 d6 6. Bg5 h6 7. Bh4 a6 8. a4 Ba7 9. Nbd2 g5 10. Bg3 O-O 11. O-O Kg7 12. Re1 g4 13. Bh4 Ne7 14. Bxf6+ Kxf6 15. Nh4 Ng6 16. Nf5 Bxf5 17. exf5 Kxf5 18. d4 d5 19. Bd3+ e4 20. Bxe4+ dxe4 21. Nxe4 Nh4 22. h3 Kg6 23. hxg4 f5 24. Ng3 Qg5 25. gxf5+ Kh7 26. Re4 Rg8 27. Qd3 Rae8 28. f6 Rxe4 29. Qxe4+ Ng6 30. Qxb7 Bb8 31. Qc6 Nf4 32. Re1 Qd5 33. Re7+ Kh8 34. Qxd5 Nxd5 35. Re6 a5 36. f7 Rf8 37. Nh5 Rxf7 38. Re8+ Kh7 39. Rxb8 Nb6 40. Ng3 Nxa4 41. Rb5 Re7 42. Kf1 c6 43. Rb8 c5 44. d5 c4 45. d6 Rd7 46. Ne4 Kg6 47. g4 h5 48. gxh5+ Kf5 49. f3 Kf4 50. Kf2 Rh7 51. Rb5 Nxb2 52. Rxb2 Rxh5
53. Rd2 1-0
Photo Courtesy: Tech Mahindra Global Chess League
Official Site: https://globalchessleague.com/
