5 months ago
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Alireza Firouzja conscionable turns up astatine the Global Chess League and wins astir of the time. Last year, helium drew his archetypal crippled and past won the pursuing six, arsenic helium went connected to play a large relation successful Triveni Continental Kings’ rubric defence successful London.
Things are hardly immoderate antithetic successful the 3rd play of the GCL. He has made it 5 Out of 5 truthful far: helium bushed Maxime Vachier-Lagrave to pb Continental Kings to a 9-5 triumph against upGrad Mumba Masters successful the clash betwixt the table-toppers astatine the Royal Opera House present connected Thursday.
It was so Firouzja’s triumph that decided the intimately contested affair. All the different 4 boards had been drawn. He held his nerves successful clip unit to marque usage of his rival’s inaccurate moves.
So Firouzja has beaten each subordinate connected the Icon board, his erstwhile victims being the World No. 3 Fabiano Caruana, the reigning World champion D. Gukesh, the World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura and the five-time World champion Viswanathan Anand. His teammate Alexandra Kosteniuk paid him a tribute: “It is bully to person specified a leader,” she said. “It is an unbelievable result.”
The time besides saw the unbelievably atrocious tally of PBG Alaskan Knights, the runner-up past year, coming to an end. The Knights defeated Alpine SG Pipers 12-8, with Gukesh and fellow-Indian Arjun Erigaisi delivering connected the apical 2 boards, arsenic they bushed Caruana and Anish Giri, respectively. The lucifer produced decisive results connected each six boards, successful fact.
In the day’s different match, Ganges Grandmasters bushed Fyers American Gambits 8-7. Javokhir Sindarov, the caller victor astatine the World Cup successful Goa, was the hero: helium bushed Richard Rapport. Four games successful the lucifer were drawn, and Polina Shuvalova was defeated by Bibisara Assaubayeva.
At the half-way people of the league phase, Continental Kings and Mumba are ahead.
The results (fifth round): upGrad Mumba Masters mislaid to Triveni Continental Kings 5-9 (Maxime Vachier-Lagrave mislaid to Alireza Firouzja; Wesley So drew with Wei Yi; Shakhriyar Mamedyarov drew with Vidit Gujrathi; Koneru Humpy drew with Zhu Jiner; D. Harika drew with Alexandra Kosteniuk; Bardiya Daneshvar drew with MarcAndria Maurizzi).
PBG Alaskan Knights bt Alpine SG Pipers 12-8 (D. Gukesh bt Fabiano Caruana; Arjun Erigiaisi bt Anish Giri; Leinier Dominguez bt R. Praggnanandhaa; Kateryna Lagno bt Hou Yifan; Sarasadat Khademalsharieh mislaid to Nina Batsiashvili; Daniel Dardha mislaid to Leon Mendonca).
Fyers American Gambits mislaid to Ganges Grandmasters 7-8 (Hikaru Nakamura drew with Viswanathan Anand; Vladislav Artemiev drew with Vincent Keymer; Richard Rapport mislaid to Javokhir Sindarov; Bibisara Assaubayeva bt Polina Shuvalova; Teodora Injac drew with Stavroula Tsolakidou; Volodor Murzin drew with Raunak Sadhwani).
(The writer is successful Mumbai astatine the invitation of Tech Mahindra).
