Bengaluru: It’s going to be Magnus Carlsen vs Ian Nepomniachtchi in the final of the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League as the Alpine APL Pipers take on the Ganges Grandmasters in the battle for the top prize on Sunday.
Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand-led PBG Alaskan Knights had a shot at third place, and though they defeated the Ganges Grandmasters 9-7, it wasn’t enough to see them through. His opponent 15-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus was locked in, in bullet zone. Nihal Sarin, who is turning out for the Fyers American Gambits, lost on time to fellow Indian Pranesh, snuffing out the team’s hopes of making the final. In their earlier game, Mendonca had won a dead lost game then after Mishra failed to complete a move on time. He failed and lost the game.
The third-place match will have World Championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov’s Fyers American Gambits playing CheQ Mumbai Masters. I put pressure on him and then we went to time trouble. In a re-match of Saturday, they will again take on CheQ Mumbai Masters for the third place. With the tournament rules awarding four points for a win with Black, as opposed to three for White, Knights’ two wins with White fell short. The match itself though wasn’t short of drama. Leinier Dominguez of Ganges Grandmasters shook his head. He was down to his dying seconds. With the clock ticking down and with no increment to lean on, the American grandmaster ended up sending his pieces flying in an attempt to make his move in time. He couldn’t complete his move and the teen walked away with a win for himself and his team. Mendonca had stopped the clock, called for the arbiter and Mishra had to redo the move with just one second on the clock.
“I think it was a very sharp game,” Firouzja said, “I didn’t play a bad game. The other decisive game in the match had Abhimanyu Mishra, who described his win as “karma” for his heartbreaking loss against Leon Mendonca, in their previous face-off, defeating Luke Mendonca. An unbeaten Carlsen lost for the first time in the tournament on Saturday to Alireza Firouzja of the Triveni Continental Kings, who had been on a winless run.
