News
Chess Super League R5: Krazy Knights, Quintessential Queens Knocked Out
Nakamura beat Gupta but his win was turned into a loss. Image: Samay Raina/YouTube.

Chess Super League R5: Krazy Knights, Quintessential Queens Knocked Out

PeterDoggers
| 12 | Chess Event Coverage

Pivotal Pawns, Kingslayers, Brutal Bishops, and Ruthless Rooks are the four teams that have advanced to the semifinals of the Chess Super League that will be played on Saturday. The two teams that were knocked out in the round-robin phase are Krazy Knights and Quintessential Queens.

How to watch?
The games of the Chess Super League can be found here as part of our live events platform.

Kingslayers vs. Quintessential Queens: 3-3

Bo. Fed 3 Kingslayers Rtg 3 - 3 Fed 6 Quintessential Queens Rtg
1.1 GM Sethuraman, S.P. 2620 ½ - ½ GM Karjakin, Sergey 2743
1.2 GM Giri, Anish 2774 ½ - ½ GM Koneru, Humpy 2586
1.3 GM Dzagnidze, Nana 2524 0 - 1 GM Hou, Yifan 2658
1.4 IM Soumya, Swaminathan 2351 1 - 0 IM Tania, Sachdev 2392
1.5 GM Gukesh, D 2640 1 - 0 GM Iniyan, P 2529
1.6 WIM Arpita, Mukherjee 2229 0 - 1 WIM Priyanka, K 2218

The Kingslayers temporarily reached the top of the standings after their 3-3 tie with the Quintessential Queens, who were already out of contention. Interestingly, both lower-rated Indian players held the draw against their world-class opponents after the Kingslayers had chosen to swap their top boards.

GM Gukesh D. scored a nice win against GM Iniyan P., who tried the Volga/Benko Gambit:


Brutal Bishops vs. Ruthless Rooks: 3-3

Bo. Fed 4 Brutal Bishops Rtg 3 - 3 Fed 2 Ruthless Rooks Rtg
2.1 GM Vidit, Santosh Gujrathi 2726 ½ - ½ GM Radjabov, Teimour 2763
2.2 GM Wang, Hao 2744 1 - 0 GM Karthikeyan, Murali 2630
2.3 GM Kosteniuk, Alexandra 2518 0 - 1 GM Muzychuk, Anna 2533
2.4 IM Karavade, Eesha 2345 0 - 1 GM Harika, Dronavalli 2511
2.5 GM Sadhwani, Raunak 2555 1 - 0 IM Raja, Harshit 2494
2.6 WFM Tarini, Goyal 2164 ½ - ½ WFM Salonika, Saina 2206

The Brutal Bishops and the Ruthless Rooks ended in third and fourth places after a 3-3 tie in this match as well. Also here, there was a swap on the top boards, and it worked out well for the Bishops: GM Vidit Gujrathi held GM Teimour Radjabov to a draw, and GM Wang Hao beat GM Murali Karthikeyan. White's pawn grab on b4 didn't give him much fun in this game:

Pivotal Pawns vs. Krazy Knights: 4-2

Bo. Fed 5 Pivotal Pawns Rtg 4 - 2 Fed 1 Krazy Knights Rtg
3.1 GM Gupta, Abhijeet 2628 1 - 0 GM Nakamura, Hikaru 2736
3.2 GM Ding, Liren 2799 1 - 0 GM Sasikiran, Krishnan 2640
3.3 IM Kulkarni, Bhakti 2388 0 - 1 GM Muzychuk, Mariya 2536
3.4 GM Abdumalik, Zhansaya 2507 1 - 0 WGM Gomes, Mary Ann 2354
3.5 GM Arjun, Kalyan 2537 0 - 1 GM Aryan, Chopra 2585
3.6 WIM Savitha, Shri B 2281 1 - 0 WIM Mrudul, Dehankar 2256

With a win in the final round, the Pivotal Pawns ended up in first place on board points. After the triple draw drama the other day, the fifth round also saw one game where the arbiter had to step in. It involved GM Hikaru Nakamura's game, whose win was turned into a loss! Let's first look at it as there were some nice tactics involved:

The match ended in 3-3 initially but was later turned into 4-2 with a loss for Nakamura. What had happened?

According to commentator IM Sagar Shah, who spoke with the arbiter, Nakamura had a phone yjsy rang during the game: "He put it on the side, he cut it [off], but the rulebook says you cannot have any electronic gadget around you, which is the reason why as per the regulations he was given a loss."

Round 5 Standings

Rk. Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 MP BP
1 Pivotal Pawns 3 4 4 7 17,0
2 The Kingslayers 4 3 7 15,5
3 Brutal Bishops 3 3 2 3 5 15,5
4 Ruthless Rooks 3 4 5 15,5
5 Krazy Knights 2 2 4 2 4 4 14,0
6 Quintessential Queens 2 3 3 2 2 12,5

All games day 5

The Chess Super League will continue with the playoff and finals on Saturday and Sunday. The games are played with a time control of 15 minutes plus a 10-second increment. The total prize fund of the event is Rs.40 lakh (U.S. $54,000).


Previous posts:

PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.

Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.

Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.

As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


Company Contact and News Accreditation: 

Email: peter@chess.com FOR SUPPORT PLEASE USE chess.com/support!
Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
Address: 877 E 1200 S #970397, Orem, UT 84097

More from PeterDoggers
Giri's PBG Alaskan Knights To Face Firouzja's Triveni Continental Kings In Saturday's Final

Giri's PBG Alaskan Knights To Face Firouzja's Triveni Continental Kings In Saturday's Final

PBG Alaskan Knights Secure Spot In Global Chess League Final

PBG Alaskan Knights Secure Spot In Global Chess League Final