BENGALURU: JAVOKHIR Sindarov, playing with the white pieces, toppled Alireza Firouzja on the icon board to bring home maximum points for FYERS American Gambits on the fifth day of the Global Chess League (GCL). On another day when the capacity crowd started filling out the playing arena well before the first games, most of the fireworks was reserved for the final match of the day.
Sindarov, who hadn't necessarily won as many games as he would liked during the first four games, played a brilliancy on the board in the middle game to further enhance his already advantageous position. From then on, it was a matter of playing precise chess to convert it which he did. It was the only decisive win of the match as there were draws everywhere else, including in the game between Nihal Sarin and Wei Yi on one of the superstar men boards. It meant that the Gambits leapfrogged both Alpine APL Pipers and Ganges Grandmasters into first place on account of having a better tie-break score (all of them are on 12 points).
In Wednesday's first game between the Alpine APL Pipers and CheQ Mumba Masters, the duo of Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri, both playing with white, won big games to help the side to a win over CheQ Mumba Masters. Even though Divya Deshmukh lost against compatriot D Harika, Volodar Murzin, in the prodigy board, converted against Bardiya Daneshvar to lock the points for Magnus & Co.
On Thursday, Alpine Pipers face Ganges Grandmasters in a top of the table clash.
Results: FYERS American Gambits bt Triveni Continental Kings, PBG Alaskan Knights bt CheQ Mumba Masters, Ganges Grandmasters bt Continental Kings, Alpine APL Pipers bt Mumba Masters