Alpine SG Pipers players celebrate after winning the Global Chess League. (GCL)
Inside an hour after their coronation as the champions of Global Chess League’s season 3, the Alpine SG Pipers players made their way to the ornate balcony of Mumbai’s Royal Opera House for a final flourish, for the sake of the fans. Along with fireworks came a twist: three champagne bottles were handed out to the players to spray into the fans like a Formula 1 podium celebration. With R Praggnanandhaa, Leon Luke Mendonca and Anish Giri looking hesitant, the champagne-opening responsibilities were passed on to American star Fabiano Caruana, Nino Batshiashvili and the team manager. A minute’s struggle with the bottles later, a gentle spray into the crowd followed, after which the players quickly moved on.
All the top three players of the side – Caruana, Giri, and Pragg – shared jokes during the presentations, a camaraderie that will soon turn into rivalry as they fly out to Qatar for the World Rapid and Blitz Championship and then the Candidates, which is one of the most important tournaments of all three players’ careers.
Some of that serious energy was still in the team on the initial days of the players coming together. So it’s not a surprise that until a few days back, the team had slim chances of making it to the final itself. Pragg says their season, before they cracked the code to make it to the final, was ‘shaky’.
“At some point our top three players (Caruana, Giri and himself) were not playing well. But we were joking about it and having fun about it and not really worrying about it,” admits Pragg in a conversation with The Indian Express.
The team started off with two defeats in a row in the season. But then, an inspired idea from the team’s ‘prodigy’ player, Leon Luke Mendonca, became the social glue that brought together the team every night in the hotel lobby. A card game called ‘Kabootar’, “We were playing a funny game called kabootar, which we played a lot after first starting it around round 4. We had a lot of time on our hands (since there is just one game a day), so we had to do something. Then I think we were all open to it. Leon basically got it. Then at some point we were just annoyed with that game because it just wasn’t finishing. We also started getting other friends along. So then we moved on to another game called Avalon,” chuckles Pragg.
The card games did the trick. By the time the final game of chess came around, they were even comfortable discussing opening ideas with each other despite Fabi, Pragg and Anish facing an elephant in the room. They will be heading to one of the most cut-throat tournaments in the sport, the Candidates in March, where they will try their best to bruise their lifelong dream of earning a shot at the world champion’s crown to contest against D Gukesh.
“We were even discussing some general stuff about openings,” Pragg reveals before quickly adding: “Not too deep of course, we are all going to play in the Candidates. But generally we were having a lot of fun with the team. That’s one of the main reasons we won, we had really good team spirit, you can always see someone chipping in.”
After the balcony celebrations, the Pipers were quickly on their way to the team hotel. Most of them will be flying out tonight for Qatar for the World Rapid and Blitz. Champagne, camaraderie and card games will soon be forgotten, with only Candidates on their minds.