Global Chess League: Anand's Ganges Grandmasters back at the helm

Jobannie Tabada

sports@khalejtimes.com

The Ganges Grandmasters stormed back to the top of the leaderboard in the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League after an emphatic 18-2 victory over the Triveni ContinentalKings at the Le Meridien hotel on Monday.

GM Leinier Dominguez, GM Hou Yifan and GM Bella Khotenashvili won in succession, surprisingly facing little resistance against Triveni’s GM Wei Yi, GM Kateryna Lagno and GM Nana Dzagnidze, respectively, to put the match out of reach.

In the match-up’s last game to finish, team leader GM Viswanathan Anand added another win to Ganges for good measure after capitalising on an uncharacteristic tactical oversight by GM Levon Aronian.

The Ganges Grandmasters upped their tally to 12 points from five matches going into the second half of the double round-robin tournament, sharing the lead with GM Magnus Carlsen’s SG Alpine Warriors, who lost grip of the sole leadership after crashing to the Balan Alaskan Knights in the day’s final encounter and the first return match of the tournament.

“The rest of the tournament is like a separate tournament now, because in the first phase (you didn’t know what colour you’d play) so you needed some adjustment. You’re preparing, but you don’t know if you’ll be playing white or black,” said Anand of the tournament’s unique format wherein colours in the first half of the double-round robin tournament were determined by a coinflip.

“(In the second half), you might see much more prepared ideas and people going for the jugular.”

More than a year after Carlsen defeated GM Ian Nepomniachtchi for the world title in Dubai, the two players returned to the city to play a mini match of sorts in the Global Chess League, and it was Carlsen who again prevailed after defeating Nepomniachtchi on Monday, but it was the Russian’s Balan Alaskan Knights who prevailed in the match.

It was sweet revenge for Alaskan Knights, who lost to the Alpine Warriors in the first round.

Winners for the Knights were GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, who extended GM Gukesh Dommaraju’s misery by handing the Indian’s fourth loss in the tournament, GM Tan Zhongyi and GM Nino Batsiashvili.

GM Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa won his fourth straight game, beating GM Raunak Sadhwani to give the Alpine Warriors their second win, but the Knights had built enough cushion to secure the match.

The disconnect between Carlsen’s winning form and his team’s fortunes was not lost to the world’s number-one player.

“It’s really strange that I’ve won two games out of six, and those were the only two matches that we’ve lost,” said Carlsen.

“We’re still in the top two, which is what’s really important. But I think what this event has shown so far is that most of the games have come down to the wire. So even though we’re doing reallywell now, for the second half it’s really very hard to say (what will happen).”

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With the win, the Knights improved to six points to catch the Continental Kings at joint third place. Only two games were played on Monday.

The UpGrad Mumba Masters and the Chingari Gulf Titans, who both did not play on Monday, are currently in second place and last place with seven points and four points, respectively.

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