Mumbai, Dec 23 Alpine SG Pipers upset two-time defending champions Triveni Continental Kings to be crowned champions of the third edition of the Global Chess League (GCL) at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai on Tuesday.
The Pipers, who had sealed the final berth by the skin of their teeth as they edged Ganges Grandmasters by just one game point, were at their dominant best in the final as they won the first rapid match 4-2 with black pieces and then scored a 4.5-1.5 win with white.PBG Alaskan Knights finished third after beating Ganges Grandmasters in a tie-break.
The finale of the Global Chess League (GCL) Season 3 lived up to the hype as the final day turned out to be as topsy-turvy as the league stage.
Triveni Continental Kings went into the final as favourites, but the Pipers, who found form in the second half of the league stage, would have felt that the momentum was in their favour. And that was exactly the case as Nino Batsiashvili and Leon Luke Mendonca, on the prodigy board, once again proved how valuable they have been to the team by winning their respective games.
Nino prevailed over Alexandra Kosteniuk in a bishop-knight endgame while Mendonca forced Marc’Andria Maurizzi into resigning after 52 moves.
Continental Kings star player Alireza Firouzja defeated Fabiano Caruana on the icon board to bring his team back in contention, but Anish Giri’s win over Wei Yi meant that Pipers took the first match 4-2.
The Continental Kings had an uphill task of scoring four points with black to stay alive in the match. But R Praggnanandhaa handed the Pipers the early advantage with a win over Vidit Gujrathi and Anish Giri, then registered his second win over Wei Yi to put the result beyond doubt. "Yesterday I had mixed feelings because I had a terrible match, but the team reached the final. But today there is no mixed feeling," said Giri after being named the Player of the Match for his two victories.
On the icon board, Caruana then scored a full point against Alireza, who ran out of time. Firouzja, who had beaten all his opponents in the first five matches, was named the Male Player of the Tournament, while Hou Yifan, who had played an important role in helping Pipers reach the final with three wins in three matches in the business end of the league stage, was named the Female Player of the Tournament.
“It feels great. The last two times, we were quite close to making the final. This time, we barely made it. But in the final, everyone showed up with their best game, and it is a great feeling,” said Praggnanandhaa after the title triumph.
Earlier, world champion Dommaraju Gukesh finally managed to beat the legendary Viswanathan Anand when it mattered the most to help PBG Alaskan Knights finish third. The play-off went to the wire as the Ganges Grandmasters took a 4-2 lead in the first rapid clash with white pieces only for the Alaskan Knights to bounce back with white to take the match into a blitz tie-break.
Anand got the better of Gukesh in the first game of the playoff and had drawn the second, so it looked like the former world champion had the upper hand over the reigning world champion in this competition.
Gukesh’s teammate Arjun Erigaisi, on the other hand, dominated Vicent Keymer on the second board in both the rapid games and even in the first blitz tiebreak and ensured that the match stayed in balance.
The Alaskan Knights rode on the momentum of levelling the regular games by winning the first blitz tiebreak 3.5-2.5 with Arjun, Kateryna Lagno, and Sara Khadem scoring a full point each. Under pressure to win and keep their challenge alive, Ganges Grandmasters went all-out in the second tiebreak with black pieces, and that meant the Alaskan Knights had their chances to win.
With all the matches heading for a result, Alaskan Knights led 3-2, with the outcome of the match dependent on the result of the game between Anand and Gukesh. And this is where the reigning world champion prevailed after pouncing on slight inaccuracies by the veteran to win in 49 moves and secure the third-place trophy for his team.
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