The round robin of Global Chess League Season 4 ends on Saturday, and the arithmetic is simple at the top. Ganges Grandmasters and Alpine APL Pipers are level on 18 match points, and either team books a place in Sunday's final by winning its last match. FYERS American Gambits, on 15, are still alive, but only if one of the two leaders loses outright. Three matches at The Lalit Ashok, from 5:00 PM IST.

Day 7 results

Standings before Day 8

Colours are no longer decided by toss. Every Day 8 fixture is a second meeting, and in the second half of the league the colours are simply reversed from the first meeting.

5:00 PM: Triveni Continental Kings v Alpine APL Pipers

Alpine have to beat the one team that has already taken them apart this season. Their first meeting, on Day 4, ended 10-4 to Triveni, with Aravindh Chithambaram beating Vidit Gujrathi after opening 1.Nc3 and Pranav Venkatesh beating Volodar Murzin, while the other four boards were drawn. Captain Loek van Wely called it a final at the time, and it knocked the Pipers off the top of the table.

The colours are reversed, so Alpine play White. That is by their own design: they chose Black whenever they won the toss in the first half, which leaves them with White in every second-half match, and a win with White is worth three game points rather than four. If the final comes down to a game-point tiebreak, that matters.

Triveni are mathematically out, sitting on nine match points with a maximum of twelve available. They have been a spoiler all week, though, and they took 13 points off PBG on Friday with three wins playing Black. Alireza Firouzja goes into the day still searching for a win, his winless run reaching eight games by Day 6 before he drew Vishy Anand on Friday.

The question: can the Pipers do with White what they could not do with Black on Day 4?

6:30 PM: PBG Alaskan Knights v Ganges Grandmasters

Ganges arrive top of the table and carrying the best game-point cushion in the league, 88 to Alpine's 82. They also arrive off the biggest result of the season, the 16-1 demolition of CheQ Mumba Masters, in which they won five boards and drew the sixth.

Their first meeting with PBG, on Day 4, was the wildest match of the tournament: all six boards decisive, Ganges winning 12-8, and the outcome hinging on Abhimanyu Mishra failing to legally complete a promotion with one second on his clock in a winning position against Leon Luke
Mendonca. Nepomniachtchi had already beaten Anand in 23 moves on the Icon board that day.

This time Ganges have Black, which is the more valuable colour in this format. PBG are out of contention on nine match points and have had a bruising week, but Arjun Erigaisi and Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus both won on Friday, and there is still money on the table: $450,000 of the prize fund is divided between the teams in proportion to their share of all game points scored across the league.

The question: does a team that just scored 16 in a single match have anything left for the one that actually counts?

8:00 PM: FYERS American Gambits v CheQ Mumba Masters

The only team with something to chase and no control over whether it arrives. FYERS need three things: to win this match, to see either Ganges or Alpine lose, and then to come out ahead on game points, where they currently trail Alpine by two and Ganges by eight. A draw by either leader is enough to shut them out, because 19 match points beats the 18 FYERS can reach.

CheQ took the first meeting 11-6 on Day 4, through wins from Shakhriyar Mamedyarov over Daniil Dubov and Carissa Yip over Sara Khadem, with Nihal Sarin's mate-in-one against Pranesh M the only point FYERS took off the board. The Mumba Masters cannot reach the final themselves, but they are in the fight for the third-place match on Sunday.

FYERS lost their grip on the lead on Friday, when Carlsen ended Javokhir Sindarov's three-game winning streak and the Pipers took the match 9-7 by a single decisive game. This is the last chance to make the margin back. Colours reverse, so FYERS have Black, which is the colour that pays four points a win and the one they need if game points are going to decide anything.

The question: is a big win here worth anything at all, or does the day end before they finish playing?

What Day 8 settles

By 10 PM the two finalists will be known, along with the pairing for the third-place match. Ganges and Alpine each control their own fate: a win or a draw takes either of them through, because both would then be on at least 19 match points and FYERS can reach no more than 18. If both leaders win, the final is Ganges against Alpine and the tiebreak question never arises. If one of them loses and FYERS win, two teams finish level on 18 and game points separate them. If both leaders lose and FYERS win, three teams end on 18 and the same tiebreak decides which two go through.

Below that, fourth place is genuinely open. CheQ sit on 12 with PBG and Triveni on nine, and both of those can reach 12 with a win, which would put game points in charge again.

Sunday 13 September closes the season at The Lalit Ashok: the third-place match at 3:30 PM IST and the final at 6:30 PM IST.

Watch Day 8 live

All three matches stream free from 5:00 PM IST. You can catch them on the Global Chess League YouTube channel, on Chess24's YouTube and Twitch, and on Chess.com India's YouTube channel.