Global Chess League: Inaugurations in New York, Paris, London and Berlin

With the Global Chess League, a new star competition joins the chess calendar. The league is a new team tournament launched by Tech Mahindra in cooperation with FIDE. The first edition will take place from June 21 to July 2 in Dubai, at the Dubai Chess & Culture Club. The organizing team counts with the cooperation of the Dubai Sports Council.

Six teams of six male and six female players compete in a double round-robin with a rapid time control. The teams are composed of four top male players and two top female players.

The teams include a number of household names and the line-ups are exquisite. With Ding Liren, Magnus Carlsen, Viswanthan Anand, Tan Zhongyi, Alexandra Kosteniuk and Hou Yifan, three world champions and three women world champions are competing. The German colours are represented by Elisabeth Pähtz, who plays together with Carlsen, Gukesh, Erigaisi and Praggnanandhaa in the Alpine Warriors. The second woman in the team is Irina Krush.

The teams are backed by franchise partners who were able to put together their teams after a special selection process. The players were previously allocated to the sections "ICONS", "Superstars Men", "Superstars Women" and "Prodigies".

The teams

SG Alpine Warriors

Balan Alaskan Knights

Chingari Gulf Titans

Ganges Grandmasters

Triveni Continental Kings

upGrade Mumba Masters

The organisers are expecting a huge response from the many top stars and the crowd-pleasing format, with up to 600 million viewers in 160 countries watching the games live.

Before the actual tournament, inaugurations will take place in the metropolises of New York, London, Paris and Berlin.

Sebastian Siebrecht was commissioned to present the Global Chess League in Berlin. Germany's great chess promoter chose the halls of the Schachfreunde Berlin, one of the oldest and strongest clubs in the German capital, as the setting.

This is particularly fitting since Magnus Carlsen made his first appearance in the Bundesliga there as a 14-year-old in 2005. At that time, the club was still called SF Berlin-Neukölln and Carlsen played in the competition against Wattenscheid. His opponent there was Carlsen's later second and coach, Peter Heine Nielsen. Carlsen lost in his Bundesliga debut.

The presentation will take place next Sunday, 11 June, from 10.30 a.m. at the SF Berlin clubhouse, Bülowstraße - 94/corner Frobenstraße.

At the same time, a large rapid chess tournament with over 120 participants will be played at the venue. Among others, GMs Marco Baldauf and Rainer Polzin, IMs Nikolas Wachiner, Lars Thiede and Michael Klenburg (ISR), as well as Martin Jogstedt (SWE), Johannes Florstedt (Berlin Champion), Magnus Ermitsch, Jürgen Federau and the newly crowned German U14 Champion Harvard Haug will participate.

Photo: SF Berlin

Sebastian Siebrecht will also present his chess programme "Fascination Chess"  and will face amateur players in the event "Beat the Grandmaster".

Links

• Official site
• Schachfreunde Berlin
• Press release by FIDE