Carlsen and Sindarov will play at least twice in GCL

Carlsen and Sindarov will play at least twice in the GCL

World chess number one Magnus Carlsen and Uzbek grandmaster Javokhir Sindarov will meet over the board at least twice at the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League team tournament in Bengaluru. The competition, featuring six franchises, will take place in India from September 5 to 13.

Carlsen will play on the first, or "icon", board for the reigning champions Alpine PBL Pipers. Sindarov will occupy the same position for the Fyers American Gambits.

The chess players will face each other twice in the preliminary round-robin stage — playing one game with the white pieces and the other with the black. If both teams advance to the semifinals, the third-place match, or the final, Carlsen and Sindarov could meet up to two more times.

This season, the Global Chess League returns to India after the 2024 tournament in London. The matches will be hosted by Bengaluru, which is referred to in the article as the country's technological capital. The tournament will conclude two days before the start of the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, where 400 teams will compete.

In addition to Carlsen and Sindarov, the first boards of the six teams will feature Alireza Firouzja, Ian Nepomniachtchi, former world champion Viswanathan Anand, and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Firouzja represents the Triveni Continental Kings, Nepomniachtchi the Ganges Grandmasters, Anand the PBG Alaskan Knights, and Vachier-Lagrave the CheQ Mumba Masters.

Other participants in the men's section of the tournament include 15-year-old Turkish chess player Yağız Kaan Erdoğmuş, who has already set several records. The women's lineup is led by Bibisara Assaubayeva, who finished second in the Candidates Tournament.

The time control for the games will be 20 minutes for the entire game, with an increment of two seconds per move starting from move 41.

Carlsen and Sindarov have played against each other multiple times, mostly in the Freestyle Chess format. In this format, the starting setup of the pieces on the first and eighth ranks is determined randomly.

The upcoming games will be one of the most notable head-to-head confrontations between the chess players, as they will have direct team significance. The outcome of each encounter could affect their franchises' standings in the tournament.

The Global Chess League was conceived as a team format uniting leading chess players, women, and young players in the same teams. The league is developing along the model of the Indian Premier League in cricket and aims to turn team chess into a larger-scale spectator sport.

The organizers are also testing new solutions in Bengaluru, including apps with game outcome probability predictions. The league aims to expand its international audience and create conditions where young chess players can perform alongside leading players.

The England men's 50+ team, consisting of grandmasters Stuart Conquest, Danny Gormally, Mark Hebden, and John Emms, as well as international master Graeme Buckley, emerged as the winner, scoring 17 team points out of a possible 18.

Italy took second place with 16 points, and the Netherlands finished third with 13. The England 2 team completed the tournament in fifth position with 11 points.

The England women's 50+ team also emerged as the winner. Its lineup included international master Susan Lalic, woman grandmaster Sheila Jackson, FIDE masters Petra Fink-Nunn and Helen Frostick, as well as Irina Troshina.

England automatically took first place as they were the only registered team in this category.