The 2026 edition of the Global Chess League - its fourth season - will begin in Bengaluru on Saturday, with the who's who of the chess world in India for the event.
Five-time world champions Magnus Carlsen and Viswanathan Anand headline the star cast, which also has world championship challenger Javokhir Sindarov, and a host of women's stars like Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh, and Bibisara Assaubayeva.
What is the GCL
The GCL is a six-team tournament, which began in 2023 in Dubai, and was then held in London in 2024 and Mumbai in 2025. The six teams have remained the same for the 2026 season as well, as the other five look to dethrone defending champions Alpine APL Pipers.
Where is it happening?
At the Lalit Ashok in Bengaluru... a rare elite chess event in Bengaluru. Indian grandmasters Koneru Humpy and Divya Deshmukh both told ESPN that they have never played a significant tournament in Bengaluru before and are looking forward to the league for that reason.
How different is it to last year?
In terms of format, not different at all. In terms of the player roster, pretty different. In terms of fan engagement activities, not much different. GCL commissioner Gaurav Rakshit said that they took initiatives in Mumbai last year that worked, such as providing fans with earphones to listen to commentary inside the playing hall. That made the sport more accessible to everyone, and they will continue to do that.
On Friday, there was fervent activity continuing to happen at the Lalit Ashok, as fan zones were being built, with the organisers expecting crowds near their maximum capacity of 400.
What is the format?
The six teams in the GCL will play each other twice in the league phase of the tournament. In each match, all six players from a particular team will have the same colour, and the colours will be reversed for the other match between the two teams in the league phase.
The 36 players in the GCL are divided into four categories - Icon, Male Superstars, Female Superstars, and Prodigy - and each player will only face other players from their same category.
Each match will be played in rapid time controls, with the players having 20 minutes to start, and then a two-second increment for each move coming into play only after the 41st move in each game.
What to watch out for?
Let's get this out of the way first - the PBG Alaskan Knights have a 15-year-old in Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus on one of their male superstar boards, while their prodigy is 17-year-old Abhimanyu Mishra. That's just an exhibition of how highly rated Erdogmus is already.
Beyond that, there are some huge matches to look forward to. Magnus Carlsen is back in the GCL after missing out last year, and his clashes against fellow icons in Javokhir Sindarov, Viswanathan Anand, Alireza Firouzja, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Ian Nepomniachtchi will all be box-office viewing.
Sindarov, unlike world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, has not chosen to give the GCL a miss, despite having the FIDE Olympiad later this month, and the FIDE World Championship match later this year.
In terms of Indian interest, apart from Anand, Arjun Erigaisi, Vidit Gujrathi, Nihal Sarin, Divya Deshmukh, Koneru Humpy, and Harika Dronavalli will all be in action. Gukesh and the siblings R Praggnanandhaa and women's world championship challenger R Vaishali have given the GCL a miss this year, particularly as it concludes just three days prior to the start of the Olympiad.
What are the teams and their squads?
What is the points system?
In each match in the league, points over the six boards will accrue towards the team's total score for that match. The game points system rewards wins with black pieces more than they do with white:
4 game points for winning with Black
3 game points for winning with White
1 game point for a draw
The game points from each of the six boards are added up to determine the winner of the match. These match points are what count towards the leaderboard during the league stage. This is how teams score match points based on the results:
3 match points for winning a match
1 match point for drawing a match
0 match points for losing a match
At the end of the league phase, the top two teams play in a best-of-two finals, with each team playing one match with each colour.
Who are the favourites to win?
The teams do look evenly matched, and the format is unpredictable, so predictions are difficult. But, in chess, one can always say that Magnus Carlsen will win and not look foolish.
So, as it stands, a safe prediction would be that Alpine APL Pipers look good to defend their title, but Sindarov's American Gambits, Anand's Alaskan Knights and Firouzja's Continental Kings also look really strong and could beat anyone on their day.