Global Chess League in Dubai: Triveni Continental Kings and upGrad Mumba Masters to contest final

Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand's teams collapse

By Jobannie Tabada

Published: Sat 1 Jul 2023, 11:35 PM

In an epic day of the underdogs, the Triveni Continental Kings and the Upgrad Mumba Masters took down the tournament’s sentimental favourites to book a finals showdown in the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League at the Le Meridien hotel.

The Continental Kings grabbed the first finals slot with a chart-topping 18 points after outclassing Grandmaster (GM) Viswanathan Anand’s Ganges Grandmasters, 11-6, on Saturday in a match that Triveni controlled from the outset.

Upgrad, meanwhile, scored a blowout victory over world number one GM Magnus Carlsen’s SG Alpine Warriors, 18-2, but in a fitting finale to the double round-robin elimination, the Mumba Masters’ entry to the final was not confirmed until after the last match of the day.

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It was a massive disappointment for the Warriors, who only needed to win one of their two matches on the final day of elimination. They ended up losing both, first to the revitalised Chingari Gulf Titans in the first match of the day, and then to the Mumba Masters.

With the win over the erstwhile leaders, the Mumba Masters moved up to 16 points for second place, but the hot-streaking Gulf Titans, who along with the Warriors had two games scheduled on Saturday, were also in a position to reach 16 points with a win in their final game and even steal the other final spot from the Masters with a superior tiebreak score.

Playing a team that had nothing to lose, the Gulf Titans, however, collapsed against the out-of-the-running Balan Alaskan Knights in the tournament’s final match, 4-12, clearing the way for the Mumba Masters’ entry to the championship.

“I’m feeling amazing and I’m extremely happy we’ve made it to the finals,” said Aronian, Triveni’s team leader who won on demand over GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi in succession to power his team’s improbable rise from the bottom of the standings to the top of the leaderboard.

“This is one of the good comeback stories. I love what we’ve managed to get so far.”

GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, the Mumba Masters’ icon player and team leader who along with Triveni’s Aronian were the only two players to beat Carlsen in the tournament, admitted it was an agonising wait as the Mumba Masters held their breath until the final result of the Chingari-Balan encounter.

“We were all watching the last match in Vidit’s (Santosh Gujrathi) room and it was very tense,” Vachier-Lagrave.

“My team fought very well today and in general for the past two weeks, so I’m glad to be part of such a team that fought together. We’re just excited to be in the finals.”

Sunday’s two-game championship match will start at 5:30pm at the Le Meridien hotel.

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