Tech Mahindra Global Chess League, Season 4 · The Lalit Ashok, Bengaluru

Anand's flag fell against Carlsen on move 64. Vidit's fell on move 43 in a position with nothing wrong with it. Both of those happened in the same match, they cancelled each other out, and the Knights took the rest. Four hours later Alpine had put fifteen points on FYERS in a single match and were sitting alone at the top of a table they had just lost their first game in.

Where things stand

Day 3 results: PBG Alaskan Knights 9-7 Alpine APL Pipers · CheQ Mumba Masters 12-3 Ganges Grandmasters · Alpine APL Pipers 15-3 FYERS American Gambits · Triveni Continental Kings 11-6 PBG Alaskan Knights

PBG Alaskan Knights 9-7 Alpine APL Pipers

Two clocks decided this, and only one of them belonged to the losing team.

Anand met Carlsen with a quiet 3.Bc4 Sicilian, traded into an isolated pawn structure, and let the queens come off on move 33. Carlsen kept the two bishops, walked his king to c4 by move 52, and squeezed. From move 57 both men were under ten seconds. On move 64 the Icon's clock reached zero. A Black win is worth four here, so Alpine took the biggest single prize on the board and still lost the match.

They lost it because the same thing happened one board down. Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus and Vidit Gujrathi came out of a Trompowsky into queen and two knights each with nothing to choose between them, and Vidit gave up the exchange on c3 to keep it that way. It was still dead level when his flag fell on move 43.

Nino Batsiashvili produced the only clean win of the match. Out of a Queen's Gambit Exchange she got her rook to the seventh, marched her king up to e6 behind a pawn on f6, and left Koneru Humpy with a pinned bishop and no moves. Humpy resigned on move 44 with 25 seconds still in hand.

Nothing else moved. Arjun Erigaisi pressed Anish Giri for 45 moves in a rook ending and Giri held it on six seconds. Kateryna Lagno and Divya Deshmukh repeated in a blocked bishop ending after 65. Abhimanyu Mishra and Volodar Murzin traded every heavy piece by move 30 and shook hands with more than ten minutes each, the quietest half hour of the day.

CheQ Mumba Masters 12-3 Ganges Grandmasters

Three wins with White, and Ganges never landed a punch.

Pranesh M took the scalp of the afternoon. Against Levon Aronian he ground a Sicilian down to rook and two pawns against bishop and two, ran his e-pawn to e5, and cut the black king off with 64.Ra5. Aronian's clock ran out on move 65 in a position that was already gone.

Carissa Yip was quicker and better looking. A Najdorf, g4 and h4 by move nine, and by move 32 she had bishops on c6 and f6 with the black queen shuffling between c2 and g2 for want of anything to do. Stavroula Tsolakidou resigned.

Bardiya Daneshvar did the long version: 61 moves against Leon Luke Mendonca, rook and knight against two connected runners, both players under ten seconds for the closing stretch. He stopped the h-pawn with a knight check on e3 and that was the match.

Ganges took three draws and nothing else. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ian Nepomniachtchi neutralised each other in opposite-coloured bishops. Harika Dronavalli had a rook ending with a pawn on d7 and could not stop Polina Shuvalova checking from behind. And Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, worse for most of the game against Leinier Dominguez Perez, found a perpetual with Qe8+ and Qe7+ on two seconds, the sort of escape that shows up in the table as a 1.

Alpine APL Pipers 15-3 FYERS American Gambits

Same team, same colour on all six boards, completely different afternoon.

Alpine had Black on every board in both of their matches on Sunday. The first time it was worth seven. The second time it was worth fifteen, the biggest match score of the season so far.

Koneru Humpy needed 29 moves. Against Sarasadat Khademalsharieh she broke with 25...d4, took the light-squared bishop with 27...Bxd3, dropped her queen on b2 and landed 29...Nf4. White resigned on the spot.

Volodar Murzin needed 27. Marc'Andria Maurizzi threw the whole Advance Caro-Kann at him, g4, h4, f4 and f5, and Murzin simply took the pawn on e5, traded queens into a better version of the same position, and forked both white rooks with 27...Nd3.

Vidit Gujrathi got his afternoon back. Daniil Dubov pushed a pawn to b7 and could not get it home, because Vidit had a rook on b8, a bishop covering the square and an extra piece. White stopped on move 54, with Vidit down to thirteen seconds and not needing them.

Javokhir Sindarov and Carlsen played out a 57-move knight against bishop ending. Nihal Sarin got the same Scotch line Dubov had, and pushed Giri hard enough that Giri gave up the exchange on e3 to force a perpetual. Bibisara Assaubayeva and Divya Deshmukh repeated on move 38.

Triveni Continental Kings 11-6 PBG Alaskan Knights

The two-time champions finally won one, and did it with two checkmates on the board.

Aravindh Chithambaram delivered the first. Fifty-two moves against Erdogmus out of a Maroczy, with the Turkish prodigy pushing a pawn to c2 and one square from a new queen. Aravindh ignored it, played 51.f5, and mated with 52.Bg6#. He had eleven seconds left.

Alexandra Kosteniuk delivered the second, and hers came with a trap in it. Nino Batsiashvili was busy collecting the a7 pawn with 55...Rfxa7 when 56.Rh8# arrived.

Wei Yi did not need a mate to finish Erigaisi. Once the black king had been pulled out to g5 by 40.Rd8+, 41.Qxe5+, 42.Qc7+ and 43.Rh8+, Erigaisi resigned rather than sit through 44.Qg3+.

PBG's only real profit came from Kateryna Lagno, who beat Zhu Jiner in a queen ending by running her h-pawn to h3, worth four with Black. Alireza Firouzja and Anand drew a pure pawn race with both sides queening, Firouzja on seven seconds. Pranav V held Mishra to a perpetual on board six.

What Day 3 actually changed

Alpine are alone at the top and the only team in the field with three wins. Their 43 game points are seven clear of second, and every one of them on Sunday came with the black pieces: twelve boards, all Black, 22 points banked.

Everything from second to fifth is now a game-point argument. CheQ, FYERS, PBG and Ganges are all on six match points, separated only by 36, 34, 30 and 28. FYERS went into the day on top and lost it to one 3-15 result, which is what a four-point Black win does to a cushion.

Triveni are still last and still the strangest line in the table: one win in four, three match points, and 34 game points, more than the two teams above them. The margins have gone their way in every direction except the one that counts.

And the day belonged to the clocks. Three flags, Anand, Vidit and Aronian, two of them in level or better positions. Two checkmates played out on the board in the same match. Mamedyarov saving half a point on two seconds. Nobody in Bengaluru is winning anything slowly.

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