FARIDABAD , JANTANTRA TODAY / Fabiano Caruana ended Alireza Firouzja’s winning run on the icon board in a last second scramble to help Alpine SG Pipers upset table toppers Triveni Continental Kings 12-8 while PBG Alaskan Knights continued their revival with a 9-7 victory over Fyers American Gambits on matchday 6 in the Global Chess League (GCL), a joint initiative of Tech Mahindra and FIDE, on Friday.
upGrad Mumba Masters then defeated Ganges Grandmasters 11-6 to leapfrog Triveni Continental Kings to the top spot on better game score. But the Kings will have a chance to regain that top spot before the end of the day as they will take on Alaskan Knights in the day’s last match.
However, they would have to quickly recover from the loss against Alpine SG Pipers in the second match of the day.
Playing white in the reverse fixture, Anish Giri’s clinical victory over Wei Yi gave the Pipers early advantage and Nino Batsiashvili registered her fifth win in six matches by beating Alexandra Kosteniuk to put them in the driver’s seat. But the defending champions have a knack of wriggling out of difficult situation and when Zhu Jiner defeated Hou Yifan on the other women’s board and Marc’Andria Maurizzi ended Leon Luke Mendonca three match winning run, the lead had changed hands.
But an error from Vidit Gujarathi allowed R Praggnanandhaa to push for victory on Board 3 before Caruana gave the finishing touches in a marathon 77 moves game that could have gone either way.
The American had managed to advance his ‘a-file’ pawn for a queen by move 60 but needed to find the right moves under tremendous time pressure.
Caruana, who was also named the Player of the Match, was understandably elated in the post-match presentation and said, “Alireza is in a very good form. I think I could have lost or it could have been a draw. But at the end there was a time scramble and I had one second on the clock. But I am happy that I won.”
Earlier, Arjun Erigaisi registered his second straight win and Sara Khadem turned the tables on Teodora Injac to help Alaskan Knights win their second consecutive match in the competition.
While Arjun dominated Vladislav Artemiev to win in 45 moves, Sara registered her first win of the competition by forcing Teodora to resign after 40 moves.
However, Alaskan Knights hopes of improving their game points by registering a bigger margin victory were dashed when world champion D Gukesh went down to Hikaru Nakamura on the icon board despite the Indian having a slight advantage for most part of the 44-move clash.
In the match between, Mumba Masters and Ganges Grandmasters, GM Wesley So, Player of the Match Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Koneru Humpy won their respective games. On the icon board, Viswanathan Anand managed to build pressure on Maxime Vachier-Lagrave but could not convert with black pieces.
About the Author
