Six franchises walk into The Lalit Ashok on Saturday. By 10 PM, two will have played twice, one will have opened a title defence, and a 56-year-old five-time world champion will have debuted in colours he has never worn.

Season 4 of the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League starts 5 September in Bengaluru. All six teams play. First move at 3:30 PM IST.

Here is where each match turns.

The opening day

Three of these four look like depth-beating stars.

First, the rule that decides everything

Six players a side, all playing at once: one Icon, two Superstar Men, two Superstar Women, one Prodigy. All six get the same colour, decided by a coin toss. Rapid: 20 minutes each, two-second increment from move 41.

The scoring is the strange part. A win with Black pays four Game Points. With White, three. A draw, one each. More Game Points take three Match Points.

So the toss is live, and a Prodigy beating a Prodigy is worth exactly what an Icon beating an Icon is worth. Depth is the currency. Star power is the marketing.

One more number. Of the USD 1 million prize fund, 450,000 is distributed on Game Points accumulated across the event — win or lose. Nobody here folds a dead position and goes to dinner. Ten rounds run to 12 September, with a two-game final on the 13th.

3:30 PM — PBG Alaskan Knights v FYERS American Gambits

Viswanathan Anand played three seasons for Ganges. Saturday he opens for PBG. Opposite him, Javokhir Sindarov takes an Icon board for the first time.

PBG have no obvious weak link: Arjun Erigaisi and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus on the men's boards, Kateryna Lagno and Nino Batsiashvili on the women's, Abhimanyu Mishra on Prodigy. Erigaisi is among the best rapid players in the building. Lagno has been winning at speed for twenty years.

FYERS are the opposite proposition. Sindarov, Daniil Dubov and Nihal Sarin can beat anyone in the hall and lose to them in fifteen moves. Bibisara Assaubayeva and Sarasadat Khademalsharieh are dangerous. Marc'Andria Maurizzi takes Prodigy.

FYERS want chaos and a two-game swing. PBG want six controlled positions and a 3-3 that lands 4-3.

The edge: PBG Alaskan Knights, narrowly. Anand doesn’t need to win his board — he needs not to lose it. FYERS need two upsets against a team with no hole. A real path, but a narrower one. This is the least predictable of the four fixtures.

Watch: Erdogmus against Maurizzi. Two of the best teenagers in the sport, worth exactly what Anand is worth.

5:00 PM — Triveni Continental Kings v Ganges Grandmasters

Triveni kept the spine that carried them to the top of last season's round-robin: Alireza Firouzja, Wei Yi, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Zhu Jiner, under Loek van Wely, their coach across all four editions. The two additions are untested here: Aravindh Chithambaram and Pranav Venkatesh are both making their GCL debuts, so a third of this squad is reading the format for the first time.

Ganges bought experience. Ian Nepomniachtchi on Icon, Levon Aronian and Leinier Dominguez behind him, Polina Shuvalova and Stavroula Tsolakidou returning, Leon Luke Mendonca on Prodigy.

Aronian's return is the story. It may not be what decides the match. Ganges have assembled a top three with as much classical pedigree as anyone outside Alpine, and this isn't classical.

The edge: Triveni Continental Kings. Wei Yi against Aronian is close, but the retained four know what a 90-minute six-board match demands. Ganges need Nepomniachtchi and Aronian to convert on the same afternoon, on day one, with two new women's pairings still bedding in.

Watch: Firouzja against Nepomniachtchi is the marquee. Zhu Jiner against Shuvalova is where it turns.

6:30 PM — CheQ Mumba Masters v Alpine APL Pipers

The one people bought tickets for. Magnus Carlsen returns as the icon of the defending champions.

The rest of the six is why Alpine start as favourites: Anish Giri and Vidit Gujrathi, Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh, and Volodar Murzin, 2024 World Rapid champion on Prodigy. No board expects them to be worse than even.

CheQ are not a soft opener. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave leads, with Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Vladimir Fedoseev, Harika Dronavalli, Carissa Yip and Bardiya Daneshvar. Vachier-Lagrave beat Carlsen in this league in 2024.

The edge: Alpine APL Pipers, comfortably. CheQ's route runs through Vachier-Lagrave beating Carlsen again and Mamedyarov landing one, and that only draws them level, with Humpy, Deshmukh and Murzin still to survive.

Watch: Humpy and Deshmukh met in the FIDE Women’s World Cup final in Batumi. Saturday, they play for the same team.

8:00 PM — FYERS American Gambits v Triveni Continental Kings

Round 2, and the day's real unknown. Both teams have played. Neither has substitutes.

Here is what most previews miss: the rest isn't equal. FYERS finish around 5:00 PM and restart at 8:00. Triveni finish around 6:30. FYERS get ninety extra minutes. In rapid, on day one, against a team going back-to-back, that is nothing.

The edge: Triveni Continental Kings, but only just. Kosteniuk and Zhu Jiner are the likeliest players in the hall to grind out a clean result late. A tired Firouzja against a fresh Sindarov, though, is the exact game FYERS want, and of the four fixtures this is the one most likely to go the other way.

Watch: Sindarov against Firouzja, and whichever Prodigy looks steadier at 9:30 PM. Concentration is a resource, and Saturday is the day it runs out.

The title picture, for what it’s worth, on day one

Alpine start as the team to beat. Carlsen is the headline; six boards with no hole is the reason. Triveni look the likeliest challenger, though how quickly Aravindh and Pranav adapt will say more about their season than Firouzja's results will. PBG have a ceiling nobody has properly measured, if Erdogmus and Mishra play freely with Anand and Erigaisi absorbing the pressure above them. FYERS are built to beat someone they shouldn't and lose to someone they shouldn't, possibly in the same week, with 450,000 dollars distributed on raw Game Points; that squad is more rational than it looks. Ganges and CheQ will be judged on their bottom three boards, not their top.

Day one settles nothing. It will tell you within ninety minutes which teams have worked out that this is a team sport.

Where to watch

The official GCL broadcast, Chess24 on YouTube and Twitch, and Chess.com India on YouTube. Commentary from Tania Sachdev, Sagar Shah, Sahaj Grover, Harshit Raja and Irina Krush. Tickets on BookMyShow; the Chesstival fan zone runs alongside at The Lalit Ashok.