All posts tagged: Global Chess League

Chess: Viswanathan Anand beats world champion Gukesh at GCL 2025

Chess: Viswanathan Anand beats world champion Gukesh at GCL 2025

Published by Webster

Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand got the better off the reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju in a clash of generations at the 2025 Global Chess League on Tuesday. Playing with the white pieces for the Ganges Grandmasters, Anand outclassed the teenager’s stern Sicilian Defence to snap his two-game losing streak in the competition. Anand’s win helped his team to a 12-3 win against the PBG Alaskan Knights and also earned him the Player of the Match award. The win for Ganges Grandmaster marked their second win in three ties. They are now placed second on the points table with 6 points, just behind Triveni Continental Kings. The PBG Alaskan Knights, meanwhile, sit rooted to the bottom of the table and are the only team yet to open their account. Disclaimer: We do not own any of the content, ideas, images, or text presented here. All rights belong to their respective owners. For more information and to view the original source, please visit the following link: Source link

Global Chess League 2025: When D Gukesh picked a fight on the board that ‘Vishy sir’ won | Chess News

Global Chess League 2025: When D Gukesh picked a fight on the board that ‘Vishy sir’ won | Chess News

Published by Webster

What do chess players do when they want to pick a fight over the board? If they’re playing with black pieces, they’re likely to play the Sicilian opening, a razor-sharp option which sends a signal to the opponent that you’re itching for a battle over the 64 squares. That’s exactly what world champion D Gukesh did when he faced off against his idol and mentor Viswanathan Anand in a Global Chess League clash on Tuesday. Anand might be semi-retired, but he hasn’t lost his appetite for a good fight and forced his protege to resign in 45 moves as his team Ganges Grandmasters defeated the teenage world champion’s PBG Alaskan Knights 12-3. The Sicilian Defence, the weapon of choice for the sport’s most ferocious fighters like Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer, starts off by responding to white’s 1.e4 with a push of the black’s c pawn to c5 rather than the more preferred response with the e or d pawns. The idea behind the Sicilian is to break the symmetry in the centre and destabilise …

Fabiano Caruana on Gukesh: ‘You can’t say that he’s clear no. 1 in world right now… but that’s normal’ | Chess News

Fabiano Caruana on Gukesh: ‘You can’t say that he’s clear no. 1 in world right now… but that’s normal’ | Chess News

Published by Webster

On a day when world champion D Gukesh, representing PBG Alaskan Knights, held FYERS American Gambits’ Hikaru Nakamura to a draw on day 1 of the Global Chess League, Fabiano Caruana said that the world champion was clearly not the best player in the world at the moment. This has been Gukesh’s year of woe, with the teenager not winning any tournament since defeating Ding Liren for the crown in Singapore a year ago. The wretched run of form has led to plenty of comparisons between Gukesh and his Chinese predecessor, who also went through a slump after claiming the throne. “I don’t think it’s the same situation. Gukesh is still playing at the top level. Just that you cannot say that he’s the clear no.1 in the world right now. But that’s also normal: that the world champion is not necessarily the clear no.1 in the world. With Ding, it was different. He was just in very bad shape. Gukesh is performing much better than Ding,” Caruana, who represents Alpine SG Pipers, told journalists …

Richard Rapport praises ‘safety net’ that has helped India’s chess stars rise meteorically | Chess News

Richard Rapport praises ‘safety net’ that has helped India’s chess stars rise meteorically | Chess News

Published by Webster

Richard Rapport remembers being impressed when a newly-minted world champion Gukesh Dommaraju rattled off the names of the Avengers that he had assembled to help him dethrone Ding Liren at the world chess championship in 2024. At that world championship in December last year, the Hungarian grandmaster, who has made a name for himself as a man who can think out of the box and brings plenty of creativity in openings besides wild and unpredictable moves, was at the other side of the battlefield, having enlisted with Team Ding for both of the Chinese grandmaster’s world championship battles. “When I saw Team Gukesh, it was a very impressive team of people. To be able to afford and to be able to maintain such a setup, it’s just very impressive,” Rapport tells The Indian Express in an interview ahead of the third edition of the Global Chess League where he will represent the American Gambits franchise. For his first assault at the world champion’s crown, the then 18-year-old from Chennai had brought together a team of …

GCL’s headphone gambit: 3rd edition of chess league to let fans sport headphones to hear live commentary while watching contest at the venue | Chess News

GCL’s headphone gambit: 3rd edition of chess league to let fans sport headphones to hear live commentary while watching contest at the venue | Chess News

Published by Webster

Over the last couple of years, chess tournaments have tried their best to court casual fans and become more accessible to those who may not necessarily be able to distinguish a good move from a terrible one. Towards that endeavour, the third edition of the Global Chess League (GCL) will introduce a novel move for a FIDE-approved tournament: fans inside the playing hall will be allowed to wear headphones and listen to real-time commentary during games, something akin to the radio earwigs cricket fans at England stadiums can hear commentary on. The third edition of the GCL will be the first held in India. This season, the league will also debut concepts like team booths (where players will sit next to each other before their games start) and offer the chance for fans to play in an over-the-board ‘vote chess’ game against elite grandmasters in the arena. “Chess can be a pulsating event. But you may not exactly get that if you are watching the sport in a silent auditorium,” says GCL commissioner Gourav Rakshit. …

Elite player, 2nd to world champions, and now team captain: P Harikrishna readies for new role at GCL with Mumba Masters | Chess News

Elite player, 2nd to world champions, and now team captain: P Harikrishna readies for new role at GCL with Mumba Masters | Chess News

Published by Webster

After shaping the world championship-winning campaigns of Gukesh Dommaraju and Ju Wenjun as their second, and then making it to the round of 16 of the wildly-volatile FIDE World Cup as a player last month, Pentala Harikrishna is currently readying himself to sport a third hat: that of a team captain for the Mumba Masters franchise in the third edition of the Global Chess League, that will begin in Mumbai from December 14. A team captain, like a captain in the Davis Cup team in tennis, does not play in games, but is in charge of overall strategy besides other intangible elements like player morale in the outfit. In a largely individualistic sport like chess, the GCL introduces a rare team dynamic which players only experience at Olympiads that happen once in two years or in European leagues. This makes the team captain’s role vital. In the past, GCL franchises have used team meals as a way to foster team culture and bonding, especially with players coming from different nationalities. “The first thing for me …

American Gambits onboard FYERS as title sponsor

American Gambits onboard FYERS as title sponsor

Published by Webster

Bangalore: The American Gambits, one of the most innovative and tech-driven franchises in the Global Chess League, are announced FYERS, technology-first brokerage and investment platform as their title sponsor here on Thursday. As a part of the announcement, the team also unveiled its official jersey at the event presided by Prachura PP, Co-owner of the American Gambits, Tejas Khoday, CEO and Co-founder of FYERS, and Luckey Saini, Senior VP and Marketing Head, FYERS. Shared values Through their strategic three-year partnerships, FYERS will support American Gambits’ growth and performance, both on and beyond the chessboard. The collaboration highlights the shared values of strategic thinking, analytical rigor, and disciplined execution that define both FYERS’ approach to investing and the American Gambits’ gameplay. As a platform empowering traders with precision and strategic insight, FYERS finds a natural synergy in supporting the American Gambits that embodies the same traits. This alliance not only strengthens FYERS’ presence in the chess community but also reinforces belief in strategy and intellect as keys to success both in chess and in the markets. …

Can chess force broadcasters to change the channel and put it on TV?

Can chess force broadcasters to change the channel and put it on TV?

Published by Webster

Over the past week, a new chess event with a twist, called Checkmate: USA vs India, found a place in the calendar. The tournament will see young gunslingers like D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and Divya Deshmukh lead Team India against the might of Team USA featuring – among others – old warhorses Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The goal, organisers told The Indian Express, was to drag chess from the “fringe of mainstream sports” and onto television screens, a challenge that has proved daunting for even legacy chess events with decades of history. Chess is one of those unique sports that gets most of its eyeballs from streaming platforms or YouTube. Forays on television, not counting highlights packages, have been rare even in a country with a booming chess culture like India. It’s a problem so vexing that even FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky admitted in a recent interview on Chessbase India: “Maybe, we don’t have a product that is ready to be televised in a way that millions of people can follow it.” Story continues …

Triveni beat PBG to win second successive title

Triveni beat PBG to win second successive title

Published by Webster

Triveni Continental Kings, the champions of the inaugural season in 2023, defeated the PBG Alaskan Knights in both final matches to win their second successive title in the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League. In two hard-fought, nerve-wracking games, Triveni stunned PBG Alaskan Kings with a 13-7 victory as Black in the first match and followed it up with a 9-7 win as White in the second. This victory earned Triveni the championship and the top prize of 500,000 US dollars. Former Women’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk emerged as the hero of the day. Her victory over Tan Zhongyi in the decisive game of the second match denied PBG a chance at tiebreaks. For her remarkable performance, she was named Player of the Match. “Amazing how chess can be so exciting,” said Alireza Firouzja, Triveni’s Icon player. “I am very happy and delighted to be part of this amazing event and show.” Firouzja also commented on the season’s innovation of no-time increments, a rule that added intensity to the matches: “As a player, I am happy …

Sneakers in the playing hall is GCL’s dressed down version of chess, even Viswanathan Anand is warming up to it | Chess News

Sneakers in the playing hall is GCL’s dressed down version of chess, even Viswanathan Anand is warming up to it | Chess News

Published by Webster

The Light Auditorium in London’s Friend’s House is bathed in pink light as players from the Ganges Grandmasters and the American Gambits, led by their ‘icon’ players Viswanathan Anand and Hikaru Nakamura, emerge from a door, sporting bright and colourful jerseys, track pants and sneakers, a break from their usual business suits. A few hundred spectators, many of them Indian-origin residents of the UK, burst into loud cheers as the two teams line up under a giant, four-sided jumbotron that belongs more to a boxing arena than a chess hall, another break from tradition in a sport where the playing halls can be quieter than libraries. For a sport that generally takes itself very seriously, almost to the point of being a stickler about players’ attire during matches, this dressed-down version at the Global Chess League is an attempt to take chess into uncharted territory: packaging the sport to make it look cooler for television and streaming. “I actually enjoy playing with sneakers very much. Normally I’m slightly conservative. Many of the other players dress …