A Look at Day 1 of the Global Chess League 2026

by Rasika Ratnaparkhi - 06/09/2026

The Global Chess League season 4 has started and it's already giving us beautiful moments. Six teams are battling it out in Bangalore from 5th-13th September. ChessBase India has been there capturing moments from the games, the dugouts, and everything in between. Here are some memorable pics from Day 1. Photos: Anmol Bhargav

Global Chess League Season 4 begins!

The first game of GCL 2026 had a nice storyline built in! It was Vishy Anand vs Javokhir Sindarov.

The man who's mentored World Champion Gukesh, sitting across the man challenging for that very title!

Anand held his own for most of the game. But Sindarov kept pushing and eventually got a blunder from the five-time World Champion. Sindarov took the win, and with it, helped Fyers American Gambits beat PBG Alaskan Knights!

One day before GCL 2026 started, Cheq Mumba Masters got some bad news: Vladimir Fedoseev wasn't going to make it to Bengaluru. Their board 2 was suddenly empty, and they had to figure something out, fast.

They could've played it safe by moving Mamedyarov up to board 2 as he is an experienced player. Instead, they picked 20-year-old Pranesh and put him straight on board.

Pranesh's very first game for the team and he won against Anish Giri!

Nepomniachtchi drew his game against Firouzja, Aronian went and crushed Wei Yi and then both of them sat back and watched the rest of their team finish the job.