BENGALURU: IAN Nepomniachtchi's head was doing a little dance of its own. It was like he was listening to music from another dimension. The emotions were in stark contrast to the ones painted by the person at the other end of the table. Magnus Carlsen couldn't even bear to look at his white king. It was coming under heavy gunfire and was about to fall. In the end, the World No. 1 and one of the greatest to have ever played the game threw in the towel and walked off the stage.
Even as the last game of the final was being played out, he was cursing himself next to the dugout. Nepomniachtchi's pain of crumbling against the Norwegian in that 2021 World Championship will never go away but this was some consolation win in front of a packed audience to close out the fourth edition of the Global Chess League.
That win with the black pieces for the Russian set the Ganges Grandmasters on their way to lift the title for the first time; the defending champions, APL Alpine Pipers, melted away in the second batch of games to lose the summit clash 7-5 (3-3 in the first and 4-2 in the second).
There were other heroes for Ganges — not least Stavroula Tsolakidou, who again produced the goods by topping Koneru Humpy on the day it mattered the most — but this Sunday was reserved for Nepomniachtchi's defence before pouncing one Carlsen inaccuracy into a totally winning position.
Coming into Sunday's final, there hadn't been much separating the two icons. Both of them had faced each other twice and both times, the Russian hadn't given the five-time world champion even as much as a sniff. And that trend continued in the first game when both players signed truce.
Going into the second round of games, the Pipers had the momentum — Volodar Murzin had restored parity and they now had the white pieces — but the Grandmasters' players stepped up when they were facing the heat. Even as some of their other senior players drew quickly — Levon Aronian and Leinier Dominguez — Nepomniachtchi was prepared to engage in a fistfight.
And engaging in a fistfight with Carlsen is usually fraught with danger, especially when his lines were reminiscent of that World Championship from Dubai. That much was made clear by the commentators and Carlsen in fact had a small advantage out of the opening when he had won the battle for space. However, it crumbled after the committal 28. Qxb6 when Carlsen decided to capture an undefended pawn on the b file. He followed that inaccuracy with a question mark move several steps later. It was then that the Russian had realised that he was completely winning. The mood had totally shifted in the playing hall.
After 39 moves, Carlsen resigned when checkmate was waiting at the end of the line.
Results: Final: Ganges Grandmasters bt APL Alpine Pipers, Third place: FYERS American Gambits bt CheQ Mumba Masters
