PBG Alaskan Knights Secure Spot In Global Chess League Final

After they led for most of the event, it was unsurprising to see the PBG Alaskan Knights become the first team to secure a spot in Saturday's final of the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League. The Knights defeated the Triveni Continental Kings, who now have to beat the Alpine Sg Pipers on Friday to qualify and stop their opponents doing the same.

Day nine starts on Friday, October 11, at 8 a.m. ET / 14:00 CEST / 5:30 p.m. IST.

Day 8 Standings

Finals for PBG!

— Anish Giri (@anishgiri) October 10, 2024

American Gambits 11-6 upGrad Mumba Masters

In the first match of the day, one that no longer played a role in the main intrigue of the event, the American Gambits defeated the upGrad Mumba Masters with two (black) wins vs. one loss. GM Hikaru Nakamura showed the way on board one by winning a complicated endgame against GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, although GM Jonas Bjerre lost his fourth game in a row and his sixth in nine games on the prodigy board. 

Nakamura managed to confuse Vachier-Lagrave with lots of piece activity in a Maroczy Bind endgame. On the 29th move, the Frenchman boldly moved his king up the board, but that actually dropped a knight and Nakamura had no trouble converting:

Hikaru Nakamura has now beaten 3 of his 5 fellow "icons" — Anand, Firouzja, and MVL! https://t.co/CnmQwOBrA7#TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/xnCxVj0OH6

— chess24 (@chess24com) October 10, 2024

Luckily for him, it wasn't a match-deciding result, but GM Vidit Gujrathi must feel bad about how he ended up losing an endgame to GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, one that seemed extremely drawish from the get-go. Of course it was because the players were low on time, but both made several big mistakes:

Alpine Sg Pipers 13-5 Ganges Grandmasters

The Alpine Sg Pipers expectedly beat the Ganges Grandmasters, thereby keeping every chance of making it to the final. No fewer than four wins with the white pieces were scored, with only a loss on the prodigy board.

In the very first round of the tournament, former world champions GM Magnus Carlsen and GM Viswanathan Anand had drawn their game. On Thursday, Carlsen had the white pieces and won in typical style, pressing for many moves in an endgame until his opponent stumbled.

"My play has not been great so far this tournament, but my team has picked up the slack," said Carlsen afterward. After winning so many titles, he still has a chance to win the GCL too, if his team avoids a loss tomorrow.

Magnus Carlsen weaves a brilliant mating net in the endgame to defeat Vishy Anand! https://t.co/GxPZ3JeUku#TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/DdGMKC86sa

— chess24 (@chess24com) October 10, 2024

GM Parham Maghsoodloo keeps playing entertaining games but he did lose his second game in a row, and is back to a 50 percent score in London. The Iranian player came under a devastating attack from GM Richard Rapport, who got a chance to play a classic Sicilian sacrifice, already mentioned in IM David Levy's book Sacrifices in the Sicilian, published half a century ago.

PBG Alaskan Knights 12-8 Triveni Continental Kings

With a win for the Triveni Continental Kings, we would have had three teams sharing first place with 18 points going into the final day of the round-robin phase. Instead, the PBG Alaskan Knights won their seventh of nine matches and were the first to secure a place in the final. Most attention went to what happened on the "icons" board.

GM Alireza Firouzja has won six games in this tournament, against not too shabby players either. The two he lost involved heavy blunders and today it was part of an incident that required the assistance of the arbiter.

When Giri took the black h-pawn on move 59, an endgame appeared on the board with bishop, rook, and three pawns for him (with 2:20 on the clock) against two rooks and one pawn for Firouzja (with 1:58 on the clock). A lot of meaningless maneuvering followed, and on move 88, Firouza placed his rooks on f1 and d3, when Giri moved instantly and missed the winning move 89.Be2.

Oops, Firouzja did it again, six moves later. He let go of the rook on d3 and quickly grabbed it again to place it on e3, but Giri had noticed, stopped the clock, and claimed a breach of the laws of chess: the rook was released, and needed to stay on d3. (Note that it wasn't about the "touch-move" rule as mentioned in the tweets below.)

As he later revealed in an interview, the Dutchman mainly claimed because he knew he would get a two-minute time bonus, but while all this was happening, this time he couldn't help notice that Firouzja's move had been a blunder:

Anish Giri correctly claims touch-move vs. Alireza Firouzja (who had blundered, then corrected his move too late) and goes on to win a vital game! https://t.co/N8VQveWapt#TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/UEflEaQz5F

— chess24 (@chess24com) October 10, 2024

Giri reveals he only called touch-move vs. Firouzja to get some extra time, but then he realised that his opponent had blundered! #TechMGCL pic.twitter.com/OvmIvt2IJO

— chess24 (@chess24com) October 10, 2024

As part of another match without a single draw, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov defeated GM Wei Yi in an attractive game. It started from a modern line of the London System, an opening that has been known as boring for a long time but delivers plenty of exciting material these days. It seems Wei played the Bxb2+ tactic two moves too late, which meant a fourth loss for the Tata Steel Chess winner.

Here is the game, with annotations by GM Dejan Bojkov:

The Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2024 consists of a preliminary group stage and a final contested by the two top teams. In each match, members of the same team play with the same color. All games have a 20-minute time control without increment.

Previous reports:

• Day 7: 3 Teams Left In Fight For 2 Spots Global Chess League Final
• Day 6: PBG Alaskan Knights Close To Reaching Final After Day Of Blunders
• Day 5: Alpine Sg Pipers Inflict 1st Loss Upon PBG Alaskan Knights
• Day 4: Triveni Continental Kings, Alpine Sg Pipers Chase Still Perfect PBG Alaskan Knights
• Day 3: PBG Alaskan Knights Maintain Strong Lead; Ganges Grandmasters Get 1st Win
• Day 2: PBG Alaskan Knights Continue Strong On Global Chess League Day 2
• Day 1: Giri's Alaskan Knights Impress On 2024 Global Chess League Opening Day
• Preview: Global Chess League: All You Need To Know