Viswanathan Anand’s Ganges Grandmasters take early lead in Tech Mahindra Global Chess League

Former world champions Grandmaster (GM) Viswananthan Anand and GM Hou Yifan scored crucial wins on Thursday to propel the Ganges Grandmasters to the top of the leaderboard after the first day of action in the Global Chess League.

With the rest of the games in the six-board match ending in draws, Ganges cruised to a 4-2 victory over the Chingari Gulf Titans, securing the temporary leadership with three match points after the other match of the day ended in a deadlock.

The Triveni Continental Kings and the UpGrad Mumba Masters earned one point each after ending their match in a 3-3 tie, with another former world champion playing the hero’s role to save UpGrad from a disastrous start.

Playing the white pieces, Anand faced the Berlin variation of the Ruy Lopez opening against Chingari’s Polish top player, GM Jan-Krzysztof Duda, who sacrificed a pawn on the 21st move to create an opening on the d-file for his major pieces and eventually plant a dangerous rook on white’s second rank.

The five-time world classical chess champion from India created counterplay against the black monarch in the kingside to keep the game in balance, but it was a greedy pawn grab by Duda’s queen on the 35th move that completely turned the game to the Indian’s favour.

With black’s queen temporarily going offside after capturing a pawn in white’s queenside, Anand launched a major offensive against the black king with a series of pawn breaks that completely ripped open black’s kingside defence, forcing resignation just five moves later.

Hou, a four-time women’s world chess champion from China, repulsed a dangerous attack by Russia’s GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, herself a former women’s world champion, in another Ruy Lopez encounter and nursed her advantage until the endgame to secure the win after 59 moves.

In the other games, Ganges’ GM Richard Rapport, GM Leinier Dominguez Perez, GM Bella Khotenashvili and GM Andrey Esipenko settled for draws with GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, GM Daniil Dubov, International Master (IM) Polina Shuvalova and GM Nihal Sarin respectively.

Russia’s GM Alexander Grischuk, a three-time world blitz chess champion, gave UpGrad the equalizing point after beating GM Yu Yangyi of China in a thrilling game where the Russian allowed Yu to wreck his kingside pawns in exchange for the bishop pair and a dangerous initiative along the half-open g-file.

Triveni was in the driver’s seat early in the match with three of their players having completely winning positions. Yu’s compatriot GM Wei Yi went on to convert his advantage to a win over India’s GM Vidit Santosh Gujrathi, giving Triveni their first point. Russian GM Kateryna Lagno

and Danish GM Jonas Buhl Bjerre, however, let slip a decisive advantage against Indian GM Koneru Humpy and Uzbek prodigy GM Javokhir Sindarov, as both games ended in a draw.

In the other games, Triveni’s GM Levon Aronian and GM Nana Dzagnidze drew with Upgrad’s GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and GM Harika Dronavalli, respectively.