GM Fabiano Caruana‘s Alpine SG Pipers have won the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2025 with a 2-0 sweep in the Final, where GM Anish Giri and Leon Luke Mendonca starred with 2/2. GM Alireza Firouzja at times fought a lone battle as the Triveni Continental Kings failed to match the form they’d shown while dominating the first nine days and were denied a third title in a row.
Third place was taken by World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju‘s PBG Alaskan Knights, who came from behind after losing the first match of the day to GM Viswanathan Anand‘s Ganges Grandmasters. In the end the Knights won both blitz tiebreak matches to complete a fine late run in an event they’d started with four losses in a row.
Final: Alpine SG Pipers 2-0 Triveni Continental Kings
The Triveni Continental Kings had ended the first nine days of the Global Chess League with an enormous nine-point lead, but everything was reset for the winner-takes-all Final.
Match 1: Firouzja Can’t Save Kings
Firouzja had led from the front all tournament, starting with five wins in a row and ending the round-robin with another two. He kept that momentum going into the Final, where a miscalculation by Caruana was brutally punished.
That tough loss for Caruana didn’t matter, however, as GMs Giri, Nino Batsiashvili, and Mendonca all struck to claim a convincing win. GM Vidit Gujrathi had a winning position against GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, but he wasn’t able to convert. It simply wasn’t Vidit’s event, as he managed only a single win in 12 games.
That loss for the Kings came with the black pieces, so they needed to pull off the difficult feat of winning with Black in the return match—note that for the final day the scoring system reverted to the standard one point for a win, with no bonus for winning with the black pieces.
Match 2: Alpine Pipers Clinch Victory
Once again Firouzja tried to lead from the front, going for a highly risky opening with the black pieces. Eventually it paid off, as Caruana lost his way in the fantastic complications after 29…Rxa2!!.
The game would end bitterly for Firouzja, however, as he was shocked to find he’d lost on time.
Alireza Firouzja was close to beating Fabiano Caruana, but he lost on time in a dramatic finish! #TechMGCL #MegaMove pic.twitter.com/Bibz20Qdbz
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 23, 2025
Long after the game was over, Firouzja was trying to get to the bottom of what had happened by replaying footage, but there was no real controversy, since Giri, Praggnanandhaa, and Mendonca had also won for the Pipers and only GM Alexandra Kosteniuk had managed to hit back.
The star player in the Final was Giri, who twice overcame the formidable and in-form GM Wei Yi. The first game was based around a single blunder, while the second was a comprehensive victory starting with a fresh opening idea. “Judging by his recent form, Giri is one of my top picks for winning the next Candidates Tournament,” says GM Rafael Leitao, who analyzes the Game of the Day below.
So it was the Alpine Pipers who got to celebrate the title, including by spraying champagne from the balcony of the Royal Opera House in Mumbai.
The champagne celebration needs a little work! 🍾#TechMGCL #MegaMove pic.twitter.com/irowifqCh4
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 23, 2025
They’d also reached the Final in 2024, with a certain GM Magnus Carlsen, but it was his replacement who managed to complete the job.
We’re the Global Chess League 2025 Champions! 🏆@SGPipers
— Fabiano Caruana (@FabianoCaruana) December 23, 2025
In 2026 we’ll see three of the team fighting each other in the FIDE Candidates Tournament, as Caruana, Giri, and Praggnanandhaa compete to be Gukesh’s next challenger.
Congratulations SG Alpine Pipers!
Winners of the 2025 @GCLlive pic.twitter.com/vK3JIqlLfc
— Rakesh Kulkarni (@itherocky) December 23, 2025
An event that had started catastrophically for Gukesh’s team with four losses in a row would ultimately end sweetly.
3rd Place Match: PBG Alaskan Knights (Gukesh) 4-2 Ganges Grandmasters (Anand)
The third-place match took place earlier in the day and almost pushed back the Final. In the end there were four mini-matches and only two draws in 24 games!
Match 1: Anand Powers Ganges Grandmasters To Win
“It’s like playing God!” said Gukesh when asked about playing four games in one day against his great Indian predecessor as world champion, and Anand proved as formidable as ever. In fact the day started with Anand defeating the current world champion for a second time in Mumbai, after Gukesh panicked in a position he could still have held.
GM Javokhir Sindarov, IM Polina Shuvalova, and GM Raunak Sadhwani all backed up Anand to give the Ganges Grandmasters the lead.
Match 2: Alaskan Knights Strike Back
It was a match of comebacks, however, and by the time it was over the players on the bottom four boards would all have won two games apiece. Mainly they alternated winning games, though Shuvalova took a 4-0 lead in wins for the tournament against GM Kateryna Lagno before things turned around in the blitz.
To reach the blitz playoff, the Alaskan Knights needed a win for their most valuable player, GM Arjun Erigaisi, who won the first three games he played against GM Vincent Keymer, and a draw for Gukesh, who was winning but then let things slip against Anand. In fact in the final position Anand might have played on, a pawn up, if he’d been fully aware of the team situation, even if a draw was overwhelmingly the most likely outcome.
The Knights narrowly won on demand, and the action switched to two matches of 3+2 blitz.
Match 3: Alaskan Knights Take Lead
The match which gave the Alaskan Knights the lead for the first time was every bit as close as the match that had forced the tiebreaks.
Once again Arjun took over and beat Keymer with powerful chess.
The match could very easily have gone differently, however. Shuvalova was repeating moves for a draw but suddenly decided to try and win a fifth game in a row against Lagno only to stumble to defeat. On top board, meanwhile, we once more got a thriller. Anand was completely winning, then lost, then made a draw against Gukesh.
Match 4: Gukesh Win Caps Alaskan Knights Victory
Now it was the Ganges Grandmasters who had to win on demand to force the match to be decided in individual armageddon games. It didn’t come to that, though there was more madness—for instance, this time Shuvalova had a fleeting chance to deliver checkmate-in-three before losing a time scramble to Lagno.
It was fitting, however, that one of the players to clinch victory was Gukesh, who ended a tricky event (4 wins, 5 losses, 5 draws) on a high. Once again it was a wild ride, with Anand briefly taking over, but in the end Gukesh grabbed a win and third place for his team.
It took 6 games, but Gukesh finally beats Anand in Mumbai! https://t.co/Tpm7NVb0xu#TechMGCL #MegaMove pic.twitter.com/L1H12n47PS
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 23, 2025
So that’s all for the Global Chess League in 2025, but the year is far from over. In just three days’ time most of the players will be reconvening in Doha, Qatar for the World Rapid and Blitz Championships. Don’t miss it!
The Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2025 consisted of a six-team double round-robin group stage and a final contested by the top two teams. In each match, all members of a team played with the same color, with four points for a win with Black and three for a win with White. All games had a 20-minute time control, with a two-second increment from move 41.
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