The International Chess Federation (FIDE) launches the Global Chess League (GCL) tournament

The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is launching a new project. This is the first tournament called the Global Chess League (GCL) starting in Dubai. Most of the mature and young chess stars will take part in it, including the leader of the world ranking Norwegian Magnus Carlsen and the Russian Jan Nepomniachtchi, who claimed the title of world champion twice in a row. And the specifics of the GCL is the fact that the celebrities of men’s and women’s chess are divided into six international teams.

The tournament, which starts in Dubai on Thursday, is an experiment launched by the International Chess Federation in partnership with Tech Mahindra. It looks noteworthy, if only for the simplest, most obvious reason. There are quite a few notable events in the current chess calendar, but in terms of the composition of the Global Chess League participants, it definitely has no competitors. There are 36 of them in total – 24 men and 12 women, and among them there are no those who would look like random people in a status competition. And most importantly, this list contains almost all chess superstars.

In fact, three or four names are missing from an absolutely perfect set, for example, Ding Liren, who won the world title in April.

The Chinese, after the championship match, made a series of misfires due to fatigue, showed up for the GCL, but then changed his mind.

However, his absence is not too conspicuous, given the loudness of the other names. GCL has players divided into categories. So, the world ranking leader Magnus Carlsen, who held the championship title for ten years and voluntarily parted with it last summer, fought for it twice in a row against Carlsen and Ding Liren, Russian Yan Nepomniachtchi, the former holder of title, the outstanding Indian Vishwanathan Anand, as well as top grandmasters with great track records – the Pole Jan-Krzysztof Duda, the Frenchman Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and the American Levon Aronian.

The specifics of the GCL is that, while playing rapid chess, athletes will fight not for personal achievements, but for collective achievements.

All 36 grandmasters are divided into six teams, or, as FIDE calls them by analogy with clubs from American sports leagues, franchises – Balan Alaskan Knights (Nepomniachtchi got there), Alpine Warriors (Carlsen plays for it), Chingari Gulf Titans, Ganges Grandmasters, Triveni Continental Kings and Upgrad Mumba Masters. The leader of each is a player from the category of “icons”, and among the other five there are always two women and one chess player from the niche of “young talents” (however, these are all also, as a rule, already accomplished, despite their age, athletes like the Indian Rameshbabu Pragnanandhi or Russian Andrey Esipenko). Indeed, there has never been such a format in chess before. The World Chess Olympiad is, after all, about national teams tailored by gender, and about a fairly clear division into strong and weak.

The structure of the tournament is similar to the American one. First, a two-round regular championship, followed by the final of its best teams in the form of a series, albeit a small one, up to two wins, but by the end of which it will become approximately clear whether FIDE has achieved its announced goal of attracting people to chess thanks to sonorous names, a creative format, and the promised technological tricks a new audience.

Alexey Dospekhov