5 months ago
2
The reign of Triveni Continental Kings is yet over. There is simply a caller champion astatine the Global Chess League.
Alpine SG Pipers scored a convincing triumph successful the last implicit Continental Kings — the victor of the archetypal 2 editions of the league — astatine the Royal Opera House present connected Tuesday night.
It was so a superb amusement by SG Pipers, whose run hadn’t got disconnected to the brightest of starts, losing some its archetypal matches. And it had reached the last successful the astir melodramatic fashion, too, scoring conscionable 1 much crippled constituent than Ganges Grandmasters successful the league phase.
On the different hand, Continental Kings had reached the last with a circular to spare. But this morning, the champion’s manager Loek van Wely had said implicit breakfast: “In the final, we commencement astatine 0-0.”
And the last surely didn’t spell good for his team. After losing the archetypal lucifer 2-4, the defending champion had to triumph the second, portion SG Pipers had needed lone a draw.
But the SG Pipers won the 2nd lucifer by an adjacent bigger borderline – 4.5-1.5. Anish Giri shone brightest successful the last for them, beating Wei Yi twice. But arsenic manager Pravin Thipsay said, it had been a large squad effort passim the tournament, with contributions from Fabiano Caruana, R. Praggnanandhaa, Hou Yifan, Nino Batsiasvhvili and Leon Mendonca.
“We were keen to decorativeness the last without going into tie-breaks,” said Thipsay astir the triumph that came successful his hometown.
Earlier, PBG Alaskan Knights took the 3rd place, beating Ganges Grandmasters successful tie-breaks.
The results: Final: Triveni Continental Kings mislaid to Alpine SG Pipers 2-4 (Alireza Firouzja bt Fabiano Caruana; Wei Yi mislaid to Anish Giri; Vidit Gujrathi drew with R. Praggnanandhaa; Zhu Jiner drew with Hou Yifan; Alexandra Kosteniuk mislaid to Nino Batsiashvili; MarcAndria Maurizzi mislaid to Leon Mendonca).
SG Pipers bt Continental Kings 4.5-1.5 (Caruana bt Firouzja; Giri bt Wei; Praggnanandhaa bt Vidit; Hou drew with Zhu; Batsiashvili mislaid to Kosteniuk; Mendonca bt Maurizzi).
Third spot playoff: Ganges Grandmasters bt PBG Alaskan Knights 4-2 (Viswanathan Anand bt D. Gukesh; Vincent Keymer mislaid to Arjun Erigiasi; Javokhir Sindarov bt Leinier Dominguez; Polina Shuvalova bt Kateryna Lagno; Stavroula Tsolakidou mislaid to Sarasadat Khademalsharieh; Raunak Sadhwani bt Daniel Dardha).
Knights bt Ganges 3.5-2.5 (Gukesh drew with Anand; Arjun bt Keymer; Dominguez bt Sindarov; Lagno mislaid to Shuvalova; Khademalsharieh mislaid to Stavroula; Dardha bt Sadhwani).
Tie-breaks: Ganges mislaid to Knights 2.5-3.5 (Anand drew with Gukesh; Keymer mislaid to Arjun; Sindarov bt Dominguez; Shuvalova mislaid to Lagno; Stavroula mislaid to Khademalsharieh; Sadhwani bt Dardha).
Knights bt Ganges 4-2 (D. Gukesh bt Viswanathan Anand; Arjun Erigaisi bt Vincent Keymer; Leinier Dominguez bt Javokhir Sindarov; Kateryna Lagno bt Polina Shuvalova; Sarasadat Khademalsharieh mislaid to Stavroula Tsolakidou; Daniel Dardha bt Raunak Sadhwani).
(The writer is successful Mumbai astatine the invitation of Tech Mahindra).
