GCL: Alpine Pipers in the final as Mumba Masters lend a helping hand

The only way for Magnus Carlsen’s team — Alpine Pipers — to make it to the final of the Global Chess League after the 6-11 loss to Triveni Continental Kings in the day’s first match, was a victory for the CheQ Mumba Masters in the last league match, against Fyers American Gambits. And they obliged.

The Masters won an edge-of-the-seat thriller 11-6, but it easily could have gone the other way around, and the American Gambits, playing at home, would have been in Sunday’s final. Nihal Sarin was in a winning position against M. Pranesh, but the Kerala Grandmaster blundered under severe time pressure, and then he went on to lose on time. The Gambits’ biggest star, Javokhir Sindarov, did his bit, beating Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on the Icon board, but that wasn’t going to be enough.