Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2024 starts with a grand opening ceremony
Tech Mahindra Global Chess League started with a gala opening ceremony at Merchant Taylors' Hall in London, England. The opening ceremony had a lot of things happen - celebrated chess journalist, Peter Doggers revealed his new book - The Chess Revolution, Arjun Erigaisi and Anish Giri answered a few questions with him, Sameer Pathak, CEO of TMGCL announced that ChessBase India youtube channel reached 2 Million subscribers and congratulated the team for the contribution, special awards were given to the teams for making good moves both on and off the board, teams posed with the winner's trophy and an acapella performance to conclude the evening. Today there will be three matches - upGrad Mumba Masters vs American Gambits from 1 p.m. local time, 5:30 p.m. IST, Ganges Grandmasters vs Alpine SG Pipers from 3:30 p.m. local time, 8 p.m. IST and PBG Alaskan Knights vs Triveni Continental Kings from 4:45 p.m. local time, 9:15 p.m. IST. Photos: Shahid Ahmed
Tech Mahindra GCL first match is just hours away
Generally on Day 0 of a round-robin tournament, Draw of Lots take place. The pairing was done already. We mentioned a few days ago that all members of one team will play with the same color, either white or black. In the rematch against the same team, the colors be inverted which means each player gets to play with white and black both. Now which team will get white/black in their first encounter against a new team? That will be decided 30 minutes before the match, either via draw of lots or similar method of chance.
World no.3 - GM Arjun Erigaisi and World no.20 - GM Anish Giri were called on the stage to answer a few questions about the impact of Global Chess League to the chess universe. Arjun Erigaisi mentioned that what IPL (Indian Premier League) did to cricket, GCL could very well be doing the same to chess. Anish later reappeared with his team, PBG Alaskan Knights on the stage for a photograph with the trophy. He in his usual witty and joking way chimed that he is here for the content and social media, while his teammates are going to play good chess. Needless to say, Giri is going to make an impact on the board with his teammates too.
Day 1 matches
Match #1: upGrad Mumba Masters vs American Gambits from 1 p.m. GMT, 5:30 p.m. IST.
Match #2: Ganges Grandmasters vs Alpine SG Pipers from 3:30 p.m. GMT, 8 p.m. IST.
Match #3: PBG Alaskan Knights vs Triveni Continental Kings from 4:45 p.m. GST, 9:15 p.m. IST.
Puzzles
A few puzzles were given at the opening ceremony of interesting games by famous chess players. The question was not only to find the move but also name the players, event and year.
Answers are at the end of the article. Watch the opening ceremony to find out who guessed which answers.
Photo Gallery
Video Gallery
Puzzle answers:
1. Vladimir Kramnik - Vishy Anand, World Championship Match 2008
2. Magnus Carlsen - Levon Aronian, Tata Steel India Blitz 2019
3. Garry Kasparov - Veselin Topalov, Wijk aan Zee 1999
4. Hikaru Nakamura - Vidit Gujrathi, FIDE Candidates 2024
5. Magnus Carlsen - Richard Rapport, World Blitz 2022
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Links
Tech Mahindra Global Chess League: Official site, facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube and linkedin
Tech Mahindra: Official site, facebook, twitter, youtube and linkedin
