Triveni Continental Kings, Alpine Sg Pipers Chase Still Perfect PBG Alaskan Knights
The PBG Alaskan Knights won their fifth match on Sunday to lead the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League with a six-point margin halfway through the round-robin stage. The Triveni Continental Kings and the Alpine Sg Pipers are sharing second place with five rounds to go before the top two teams qualify for the big final.
Day five starts on Monday, October 7, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.
Day 4 Standings
With most of the seats filled for the second day in a row, the teams arriving in the playing hall were cheered on even louder than before. A friend of mine who lives in London and visited on Saturday described the atmosphere at this Global Chess League perfectly: "It was the first time I ever took part in a wave among the crowd at a chess tournament!"
American Gambits 10-4 Ganges Grandmasters
Having lost two consecutive matches, GM Hikaru Nakamura's American Gambits were really looking for a bounce-back win on Sunday afternoon, and they managed. The leader showed the way by beating GM Viswanathan Anand while GM Elisabeth Paehtz won a topsy-turvy game against IM Nurgyul Salimova.
The Ganges Grandmasters actually won the toss but decided to play with Black anyway. "The last two matches we had good momentum with Black, and we just hope to continue with that,” said coach GM Vishnu Prasanna. "We were very happy to get on the scoreboard, and it felt like luck was swinging our way a bit more."
GM Ramesh R B, coach of the American Gambits, said that his team had focused on having a good time after those two losses: "Most players went to the gym, did some workout, and then we played some card games. Some fun activities together."
Anand hadn't lost for 22 games in a row against Nakamura, but that streak came to an end, and Nakamura scored his first win in this tournament. Anand actually played really well, showing excellent defense, but he was just a tiny bit too slow and also seemed nervous as he was making his final moves with a slightly shaking hand.
Although it wasn't strange at all that he played on until Anand's flag fell, Nakamura's win still felt a bit uncomfortable to watch, and he admitted that that's how he felt as well: "I had some moments where I could have made a draw, but I kept pushing and to be honest, I would have preferred not to have flagged Vishy and won the way I did, but in the end it’s a team event and we weren’t doing so well, so I’m pretty happy with the result."
Hikaru Nakamura: "To be honest, I would have preferred not to flag Vishy and win the way I did, but at the end of the day it's a team event & we weren't doing so well, so I'm pretty happy with the result!" #TechM pic.twitter.com/khCb2UkAZy
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 6, 2024
Paehtz won a long and tough fight vs. Salimova that saw many phases. First, the German grandmaster nicely refuted a piece sacrifice, then didn't continue too well, and was even lost briefly. In the knight vs. bishop endgame, Salimova missed several tablebase draws.
Alpine Sg Pipers 7-9 PBG Alaskan Knights
Despite losing a quick game on board one, the PBG Alaskan Knights continued their winning ways with a narrow victory over the Alpine Sg Pipers. After winning the toss, GM Magnus Carlsen actually overruled team captain GM Praveen Thipsay (who wanted to choose the white pieces) arguing: "We play better with Black." That didn't work out in the end, partly because of the first successful draw claim in the tournament.
This match started very unfortunately for the tournament leaders, who saw their "icon" player GM Anish Giri lose in just 22 moves to Carlsen after blundering a piece—the same amount of moves Giri needed to win their first-ever clash in 2011 in Wijk aan Zee.
Counterpoints were scored by GMs Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who won an excellent game against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, and GM Tan Zhongyi, who beat GM Hou Yifan in a clash of two former Chinese women's world champions. It was a curious moment when Tan thought for 14 seconds but somehow completely missed that she had a mate in one, but after playing another winning move her opponent resigned anyway.
Despite a long think, Tan Zhongyi misses mate-in-1 with 48.Qxh5#, but 48.Qf5+ and mate-in-4 is enough to defeat Hou Yifan! https://t.co/Ifp6oBNQ52#TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/ika1Rp595M
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 6, 2024
GM Nihal Sarin seemed to be on his way to increase the score even further, but he was lacking time on the clock to convert a completely winning endgame. With two seconds left, he stopped the clock and claimed a draw. When the arbiter asked whether GM Daniel Dardha agreed to a draw, the Belgian grandmaster said: "Yeah."
Excellent presence of mind by @NihalSarin! In a position where he was winning on the board against Daniel Dardha but very low on time, he stops the clock with 2 seconds left and claims a draw. The draw is given - PBG @balanalaskank Knights defeat @AlpineSGPipers 9-7! #TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/MSFqQczNZH
— ChessBase India (@ChessbaseIndia) October 6, 2024
This author was wondering what would have happened if Dardha had declined this draw offer. In that case, the arbiter would have needed to examine the claim, and the only case in which he could have decided on a draw is when Guidelines III, Games without Increment including Quickplay Finishes, is being used in this tournament. While this author has asked the arbiter for a comment via email, for now I can say that they seem to be applied, even though they are not mentioned in the tournament regulations.
Update Oct. 7: One of the arbiters confirmed to Chess.com that the Guidelines III, Games without Increment including Quickplay Finishes are indeed in effect in this tournament and were announced at the Technical Meeting before the start of the tournament and that this should have been mentioned in the tournament regulations.
The Alpine Sg Pipers appealed the arbiter's decision to let the players agree to a draw, but the Appeals Committee saw no reason to change the result or take any other action while noting that irregularities had occurred earlier:
It was totally ridiculous. I reviewed the video in the Appeals Committee meeting. Pieces thrown all over the place, clock hit before the move was complete, he was even standing up at one point. I asked for the arbiter to be explained the basics. We have to do better https://t.co/CexAfSMijy
— Malcolm Pein (@TelegraphChess) October 6, 2024
Triveni Continental Kings 12-3 upGrad Mumba Masters
The Triveni Continental Kings moved to second place thanks to a convincing victory over the upGrad Mumba Masters. Three wins with the white pieces and draws on the other boards left no doubt here.
GM Alireza Firouzja is having a fantastic tournament so far, with a draw and now four wins under his belt. He also won the all-French battle with GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, once again starting with 1.Nc3. This time there was no transposition into another opening, but it was a true Van Geet Opening, named after Dutchman Dick van Geet (1932-2012).
It rather backfired, though, and Vachier-Lagrave was quickly in the driver's seat. Throughout a long endgame with bishops for Firouzja and knights for MVL, it seemed that just two results were possible but rather miraculously, a third happened and Firouzja got his fourth straight victory.
Here is the game, with annotations by GM Dejan Bojkov:
ALIREZA FIROUZJA CAN'T STOP WINNING! 😲#TheNextMove #TechMGCL #UMMvTCK | @FIDE_chess @chesscom_in @chesscom pic.twitter.com/S0HftlKVnm
— Tech Mahindra Global Chess League (@GCLlive) October 6, 2024
An impressive-looking game was played by Tata Steel Chess winner GM Wei Yi, who beat GM Vidit Gujrathi by going for a slightly dubious attack, but in this time control it is better for just about anyone to be on the attacking side.
Alpine Sg Pipers 9-7 American Gambits
This match from round three saw the big clash between Carlsen and Nakamura, a game that didn't disappoint despite ending in a draw. At the end of the day, it was Dardha who was rewarded for his earlier sportsmanship as he became the match winner, playing strongly in an endgame, watched by Carlsen.
Nakamura's Hyperaccelerated Dragon (2...g6) got Carlsen thinking for about a minute on his third move, but after deciding on a Maroczy Bind setup, he reacted very well to Nakamura's modern way of playing it. 16.h3 was impressive as the world number-one had calculated that his c4-pawn was poisoned, and then he was on top but eventually let a fiercely countering Nakamura escape. For a brief moment, the American GM was winning too, so perhaps the game result was justified.
Carlsen and Nakamura draw an insanely complicated game where both player had winning chances! https://t.co/hDVcmFVYDL#TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/6678bo7ifw
— chess24 (@chess24com) October 6, 2024
Carlsen stayed in the playing hall and congratulated Dardha with a high five after the latter finished off GM Jonas Bjerre to gain the much-needed three game points:
How to watch?
You can watch the event on Kick. Games from the event can be viewed on our events page.
The Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2024 consists of a preliminary group stage and a final contested by the two top teams. In each match, members of the same team play with the same color. All games have a 20-minute time control without increment.
Previous report:
Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.
Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.
As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”
In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!
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