Bengaluru: Ian Nepomniachtchi has waited a long time to beat Magnus Carlsen in a game that mattered. On Sunday, playing on the Icon board, the Russian GM—he lost to Carlsen in the 2021 World Championship match—powered his team, Ganges Grandmasters, to their maiden Tech Mahindra Global Chess League title by beating Alpine APL Pipers.
It’s a funny thing with Carlsen and team events. The Pipers won the title the only year (2025) he didn’t play the league. This time with a title defence on the line in season four and the world’s best player leading on the Icon board, they tripped up.
In the two-match final, Grandmasters and Pipers drew 3-3 in their first face-off with Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi drawing their game.
In their second match-up colours were reversed and Carlsen, playing White, appeared to dip into his World Championship preparation, choosing to play the Catalan. The world No.1 unleashed a brilliancy with 19. Rd6 before Nepomniachtchi made a positional inaccuracy with 20. Qb7, while being a pawn down. Carlsen seemed to move into a decisive advantage over the next bunch of moves, sliding his rook to d1.
Nepo was in hot water.
{{/usCountry}}Nepo was in hot water.
{{/usCountry}}Carlsen greedily grabbed Black’s b5 pawn with his Queen and instantly found himself in a chokehold. Nepomniachtchi pushed his c-pawn up a square, opening up the diagonal for his bishop to gobble up White’s f-pawn (29.Bxf2+), unleashing discovered check tactics. Nepomniachtchi had turned the game around and it was Carlsen who was in the trenches. The Russian bobbed in his chair and stretched his arms, flexing how good his position looked against the five-time world champion.
Black’s rook was lined up against White’s King and its c-pawn was three squares away from promotion. Black had checkmating ideas all over and Carlsen knew he was staring down the barrel. He resigned before they reached move 40.
“I got insanely lucky. It was my only idea…Bxf2. It reminded me of some kids tournament when you badly hope that the guy will blunder something…and it worked out and I’m really happy that it helped my team.” Nepo said after the win.
The Grandmasters side, with Levon Aronian playing on their Superstar Men board and defeating Anish Giri in the first match of the final, had its Superstar Women players to thank for turning in consistent performances through this season, led by Stavroula Tsolakidou. The Greek IM was adjudged Player of the Tournament.
In the third-place match on Sunday, Fyers American Gambits defeated CheQ Mumbai Masters with Nihal Sarin avenging Saturday’s defeat to Pranesh M—which had knocked his team out of final contention—by winning both his games and steering his side to a podium finish.