Fabiano Caruana on GCL: Great to have so many top players in one place
Fabiano Caruana always wanted to play the Global Chess League, but somehow things didn’t quite work out in the first two seasons. So he is really glad that he could be part of the third edition of the world’s most glamorous league.
He is playing for Alpine SG Pipers. “There were always some scheduling issues, so I was excited when I got contacted to participate, but I wasn’t really expecting as all the teams had their players,” Caruna told Sportstar here on Tuesday. “But an opportunity came up in the Alpine SG Pipers team. It is a great team with many strong players.”
The World No. 3 from the United States feels the league is interesting to watch and play. “It is nice to have so many strong players in one place,” he said. “Normally you would have some top players in one tournament, but not this many (14 of the world’s top 15).”
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Among them are several players Caruana will be competing with at the Candidates tournament in Cyprus in March-April. He has been a regular at the Candidates, the event that will decide the challenger for the World championship, having played in every edition since 2016. He won it in 2018 and thus played the World title match against Magnus Carlsen that year. All the 12 classical games were drawn but Carlsen defended his title by winning the tie-breaks in the rapid format.
Caruna, who is the third strongest player of all time in chess behind Carlsen and Garry Kasparov, will start as one of the strong favourites in the Cyprus Candidates, but he thinks it will be a close affair. “There are top players like Hikaru Nakamura and R. Praggnanandhaa,” he pointed out. “Then there are also Anish Gri and Wei Yi. They are the contenders if you go by rating, but the lower –rated players can also be very dangerous.”
Looking back at his World title match against Carlsen, he said he and Carlsen both gained from the experience. “We both became stronger players after that match,” said Caruana.
(The writer is in Mumbai at the invitation of Tech Mahindra)
Published on Dec 16, 2025