Bengaluru, Sep 11 (SocialNews.XYZ) Ganges Grandmasters and defending champions Alpine APL Pipers registered convincing victories in the penultimate round of the Global Chess League (GCL) in Bengaluru on Friday and will need to just win their respective last-round matches to ensure their spot in the Season 4 title clash.
The Pipers defeated FYERS American Gambits 9-7 while the Grandmasters thrashed CheQ Mumba Masters 16-1 to register the biggest win of the tournament. In the day’s other match, Triveni Continental Kings defeated PBG Alaskan Knights 13-7.
Both Ganges Grandmasters and Alpine Pipers now have 18 match points, but the former’s dominant win means that they take the top spot in the overall standings due to a better game score.
American Gambits are in third place with 15 match points and would need one of the top two teams to lose in the final round, while they will have to beat CheQ Mumba Masters by a convincing margin.
And the Gambits find themselves in this position as they could not find a way to stop the Pipers in the first match of the day.
World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen ended Candidates 2026 winner Javokhir Sindarov’s three-game winning streak, and Vidit Gujrathi defeated Daniil Dubov in a rook-knight endgame to help defending champions Alpine APL Pipers beat FYERS American Gambits 9-7 in the clash of the top two teams in the penultimate round.
Pipers and American Gambits were tied on match points and game points going into the ninth round, and winning the match was important for both teams to close in on the final berth.
Carlsen, who won the Player of the Match award, was in total control throughout against Sindarov on the icon board and forced the Uzbek player to resign after 36 moves.
“First of all, I think this was a great match with a very good team performance. We are thrilled to get the win. In my game, I was doing pretty well early on, but he (Sindarov) put up a big fight, and I was able to wriggle out and find the win,” said Carlsen, who said Vidit deserved the trophy more than him and then handed the trophy to the Indian GM.
The game between Vidit and Dubov on the Superstar men's board went into a time scramble, but the Indian GM kept his cool as he made the most of an additional knight and pawn against his opponent’s rook to claim victory after a marathon 96-move battle and help Pipers complete a double over the Gambits.
Women’s World Cup winner Divya Deshmukh’s struggles in her debut GCL continued as she ran out of time on move 34 against Bibisara Assaubayeva for the only loss for her team on Friday.
“It was a very close match, and when I saw the board, we were not in a clear position to win. I felt that I played a good game, and it was very good to win for the team,” said Vidit, whose win over Dubov sealed the victory for his team.
Later in the day, Ganges Grandmasters’ icon player Ian Nepomniachtchi, Superstar men Levon Aronian and Leinier Dominguez Perez, superstar woman Stavroula Tsolakidou and prodigy Leon Luke Mendonca made the most of the opportunity of playing white as they registered convincing wins over their respective opponents. Only Polina Shuvalova drew her game against D. Harika to hand one point to the Mumba Masters.
In the match between two bottom-placed teams, two-time champions Triveni Continental Kings proved too strong for the PBG Alaskan Knights.
On the Superstar women boards, Zhu Jiner registered her first victory of the tournament, beating Kateryna Lagno in 44 moves; Alexandra Kosteniuk pounced on an error from Nino Batsiashvili while Pranav Venkatesh forced Abhimanyu Mishra to resign after 42 moves on the prodigy board.
With the Continental Kings picking up 12 points for three victories with black pieces, Arjun Erigaisi’s win over Wei Yi and 15-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus beating Aravindh Chithambaram did not really help the Alaskan Knights' chances of making it to the final.
Source: IANS
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