GM Alireza Firouzja won his fourth consecutive game in the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2025 as he took down GM Viswanathan Anand to help Triveni Continental Kings to an 11-6 bounce-back win over the Ganges Grandmasters. That came despite GM Vidit Gujrathi missing mate-in-two and losing to GM Javokhir Sindarov. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave‘s upGrad Mumba Masters also struck back with a crushing 18-2 win over PBG Alaskan Knights, with GM Gukesh Dommaraju and his team yet to win a single game.
Day five starts on Thursday, December 18, at 6:30 a.m. ET / 12:30 CET / 5 p.m. IST.
The day’s other win came for GM Fabiano Caruana‘s Alpine SG Pipers, who joined a three-way tie on 50 percent, three points behind Continental Kings and Mumba Masters.
Alpine SG Pipers 10-4 Fyers American Gambits
We’d been spoiled by a remarkable 8/9 games on the top board being decisive on the first three days in Mumbai, so that it was almost a surprise to have a quieter day at the top. Nakamura, playing Black for a third game in a row, went for the Petroff and summed things up as follows:
Maybe for a couple of moves Fabi had a slight glimmer of hope, where he could try to play for more, but this in essence sums up what modern classical chess usually is, where with great preparation you can go very deep into the game, usually around move 25-30, and it’s just very simply not a whole lot to play for.
Nakamura also recapped his previous day’s game against Firouzja.
That quiet game was mirrored on the next two boards, but lower down it was all action. Women’s number-one GM Hou Yifan looked to be beating GM Bibisara Assaubayeva, but the Kazakh player was alert to claim a draw by repetition when given the chance.
Hou Yifan lets Bibisara Assaubayeva escape with a draw by repetition, though it doesn’t hurt the team of the Women’s no. 1! https://t.co/0KyHBMFSbf#TechMGCL #MegaMove pic.twitter.com/w3PmcGmkkn
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 17, 2025
Hou’s miss did no harm, however, as there were dramatic wins for both GMs Nino Batsiashvili and Leon Luke Mendonca.
Batsiashvili’s game against IM Teodora Injac could have gone either way before the final blunder in a drawn endgame.
The game ended on time, shortly after GM Volodar Murzin lost on time, though by that point Mendonca was also winning on the board.
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 17, 2025
For a while that meant that no less than five teams were level on six points, but the two teams who had led before losing on day three both hit back on day four.
PBG Alaskan Knights 2-18 upGrad Mumba Masters
It’s hard to score a more crushing victory than the 18-2 Mumba Masters achieved with the black pieces, and for Alaskan Knights it was a continuing horror show—despite having enormous chess talent in their ranks they’ve neither won a match nor a single game! That had looked like changing on at least a couple of boards, but GM Kateryna Lagno picked the wrong path in a winning position against GM Koneru Humpy, while GM Arjun Erigaisi uncharacteristically lost his way when time trouble began to bite against GM Wesley So.
Both players had drawn all three games so far, but a mistake by So ultimately helped him to a first win.
Arjun Erigaisi loses on time in what had earlier been a winning position vs. Wesley So — incredibly the Alaskan Knights haven’t won a single individual game as they’ve lost all 4 matches so far! https://t.co/fyHJLwfVuK#TechMGCL #MegaMove pic.twitter.com/NIW784vyQS
— chess24 (@chess24com) December 17, 2025
Mumba Masters were briefly the sole leaders, but they were joined by two-time champions Triveni Continental Kings.
Triveni Continental Kings 11-6 Ganges Grandmasters
This was another powerful win for the Continental Kings, with their two top boards on fire. Firouzja has now scored a clean sweep against four of his rivals—the world numbers two, three, and now the 15th as well as the 18th World Champions! Anand had a healthy position out of the opening, but when Firouzja got to give up his queen for two rooks things escalated fast. The only thing that could stop Firouzja was the clock, but playing on seconds has seldom stopped him before.
GM Wei Yi joined in with a fine win over GM Vincent Keymer on second board, pouncing on a tactical mistake by his opponent.
That’s our Game of the Day, which GM Rafael Leitao has analyzed below.
Triveni Continental Kings have the world numbers two and three on the live rapid rating list.
GM Zhu Jiner managed to stop IM Polina Shuvalova scoring a fourth win in a row and GM Alexandra Kosteniuk scored a second win in a row, over IM Stavroula Tsolakidou, which meant the Continental Kings had scored a convincing match win and could laugh off what happened on one of the other boards!
Vidit was better, then losing, then winning, then level, then missed mate-in-two against Sindarov!
Even after that, Vidit had four pawns for a bishop but could lose all of them and still have a theoretically drawn rook vs. rook plus bishop endgame. Alas, he went on to stumble into a losing position in a few moves and Sindarov took the win—though once again, no harm was done to the Continental Kings.
Thursday will see the first half of the round-robin completed, with Firouzja aiming for a full set as he takes on the one player he hasn’t yet beaten in Mumbai, Vachier-Lagrave.
The Tech Mahindra Global Chess League 2025 consists 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 play with the same color, with four points for a win with Black and three for a win with White. All games have a 20-minute time control, with a two-second increment from move 41.
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