CHENNAI
Ganges Grandmasters (GG) continues to reign supreme in the inaugural edition of the Global Chess League (GCL) happening at the Dubai Chess and Culture Club.
After the end of play on day five, the Viswanathan Anand-led GG finds itself on the top of the points table with 12 match points, slightly ahead of Magnus Carlsen’s SG Alpine Warriors with one extra (52) game point.
One of the reasons behind GG’s early success is its team balance and the experience of Pravin Thipsay, India’s third grandmaster, who coaches this high-profile team in the GCL.
Having come in with immense experience in leading several delegations, Thipsay proved his worth in the role.
The highest-rated team of the event, GG has only lost once - to upGrad Mumba Masters in a closely-fought game where Alexander Grischuk and Harika Dronavalli beat Richard Rapport and Bella Khotenashvili with black pieces to give their team an upper hand in the matchup.
However, GG was quick enough to learn from its mistake and fought back in the next game to thrash Triveni Continental Kings 14-2, grabbing the top spot after briefly slipping to the second position.
With Anand at the forefront and Thipsay behind the scene, GG has done a tremendous job bringing out the best of both.
The duo of Thipsay and Anand goes back a long way since the early nineties, well before the chess boom. Anand became India’s first GM in 1988, Dibyendu Barua in 1991, while Thipsay completed his final GM norm in 1997, ending a six-year drought in which India produced no grandmasters.
Speaking to Sportstar in an exclusive interaction, the 63-year-old Thipsay spoke about his relationship with the five-time world champion.
“Anand is a star for every Indian. He means greater than any other sportsperson to me. I was lucky enough to be with him in a tournament in France, where he won the bronze in the U-15 cadet championship,” he said. “He’s a great personality and a great institution by himself and working with him has already always been a pleasure. We have a clear-cut sense of understanding about chess as we have played a lot together”.
“He’s always willing to help if someone is in need. The other players in the team are much younger, but Anand knows how to deal with them, and the most important thing is that we try to make it as comfortable as possible, and Anand is very helpful in that. He talks like any other person, and I believe he has been able to gel the team very well since the first day,” he added.
Team Ganges Grandmasters at the Global Chess League. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Three of the world’s top-15 players - Anand, Rapport, and Leinier Dominguez Perez - as well as Women’s World No. 1 Hou Yifan, Bella Khotenashvili, and Andrey Esipenko, play for GG, making it one of the league’s strongest teams.
“Let me make it clear that we are the highest average rating team! You can say lucky or perhaps skilled bidding to some extent. We also had complete cooperation from the owners, so we were able to get some of the players we have because when you’re picking six players from a pool of 36 with nearly equal ratings in their books, it gets difficult to find those and it was important to pick a balanced team,” said Thipsay.
Thipsay has assembled a team of players with diverse skills that complement one another and is confident of success. “It’s also logical to choose players who are resourceful and have a fighting spirit, are easy to get along with, and have originality. I studied the games of nearly all 36 players and decided to pick the most original players, those with an independent way of thinking, and that is why we are here. So, assuming the selection is correct, I’m looking forward to winning the championship,” he said.
The 1985 Commonwealth Chess Champion, Thipsay, was the head of the Indian delegation in the 2022 Chess Olympiad. Speaking about his experience there, he said, “As a captain or manager, I believe it is much easier to manage one team than it is to lead a delegation of six teams, as in the Olympiad, where everyone was staying in different hotels, and it was nearly impossible to interact with all of them. Here it’s much easier to ensure that the players are in good spirits. When the players don’t perform well, we must ensure that they are in a good mood; when someone performs well, we must cheer them up too. And, of course, be available to help them whenever they require it.”
The Arjuna awardee also thinks chess was in the need for a league like GCL for ages.
“I think it’s a great idea. In fact, it had been the idea of two Anands - Anand Mahindra and Viswanathan Anand. They’d been discussing almost for two years. But there are some reasons for not happening because of the Olympiad and other commitments. It’s been a busy schedule for chess as well, but it’s something which the sport deserved for maybe the last several years and decades, he said.
When asked to give one piece of advice to his team at this stage of the league, where GG is thriving at the moment, Thipsay did not want his team to be complacent and laid back.
He said, “I’ll tell them that the game is still going on, so, we should never feel that everything is fine right now. I believe the team mustn’t relax after how they have performed in the first few days, because I believe there is a lot more to come. The next five games are more important because people will play more carefully with us, they will prepare more for our team, and it will be a bigger challenge now. And getting to the top clearly by coming first does not end the tournament because there is also a final. So, nothing has been achieved yet. We are maybe just at the base of Mount Everest and have yet to climb on top of it.”
Comments
SHARE