Magnus Carlsen, Anish Giri, Vidit Gujrathi, Koneru Humpy, Divya Deshmukh, Volodar Murzin. Wait. This isn’t a draft for an all-star exhibition tournament, but the six-member roster that the Alpine APL Pipers have assembled to defend their Global Chess League (GCL) crown for Season 4 in Bengaluru.If last season was about breaking the stranglehold of the Triveni Continental Kings to lift their maiden title, Season 4, starting this Saturday, is likely to be about something far more terrifying for the rest of the field.Pairing World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen alongside positional titans Anish and Vidit, backed by the veteran grit of Humpy, FIDE Women’s World Cup winner Divya, and former World Rapid Champion Murzin on the prodigy board, the Pipers have crafted what might be the most formidable franchise lineup ever placed on the battlefield of 64 squares.But how do you assemble a modern-day Dream Team under a strict draft system where every single team enters the bidding room with identical resources?How can someone build a team like that?Pipers’ coach Pravin Thipsay believes that constructing a squad of this calibre isn’t about collecting shiny names.“It’s not a sort of building a star-studded lineup,” Thipsay told TimesofIndia.com during an exclusive interaction, dismissing the notion that the roster came together by accident.“It’s important to have strong players since it’s a double round-robin for qualification to the top two spots, and then it’s going to be a one-to-one match. So there are two phases. We should have a team which is very good at beating some of the teams so that we finish in the top two, and in the second phase, once we end up in the top two, it’s important to beat the other teams.”In a franchise ecosystem, every team starts with an identical bank of draft points.Securing an Icon board like Magnus Carlsen, who returns to lead the Pipers after skipping last season, requires an immediate, massive financial outlay. The moment you go big on the top board, your remaining purse is instantly squeezed, forcing coaches into high-wire balancing acts for the Superstar and Prodigy boards.“The best parameter in judging strength or the present strength of a player is the Elo rating, and that’s the reason why I personally try to have the strongest rated players in my team,” Thipsay admitted.“Now, the process of the draft is quite clear, and everybody starts with an equal number of points. How you spend those points in selecting the players, that is important.”In reality, every coach walks into the venue eyeing the exact same elite names on each tier.“Very often you have to spend most of your points on one or two players, and that leaves you in a tricky situation where you have lesser points, and you may not always get the best player you want,” the 67-year-old veteran Grandmaster added. “Nobody gets all the six players of their choice because others also aim for those players. So somewhere you have to see the balance. If you are able to get three of the most wanted or most coveted players in your team, I think it’s a good team to start with. It’s a tricky procedure to outmanoeuvre the other coaches. It’s much trickier than what it appears to be.”By securing Giri and Vidit to flank Carlsen on the top boards, while locking in Humpy, Divya Deshmukh, and Murzin, who offers incredible fast-chess firepower as a former World Rapid Champion, the Pipers managed to pull off the ultimate draft sweep across every single board category.Behind the champion’s burdenCarrying the title of defending champions only heightens the target on their backs. Coach Thipsay knows that pretty well.“The most important thing is, as defending champions, we should not be overconfident,” Thipsay told this website with some palpable firmness. “And we should not be again very attentive to the media. As a defending champion, the media is going to approach us more frequently than the other teams. But the most important factor in the game of chess is your preparation, your practice, your rest on that day.”
Pipers clinched the title last season (GCL Photo)
To combat the attention that inevitably surrounds a squad featuring Carlsen, Giri, and rising elite talents, Thipsay has already mapped out a strict operational barrier for the tournament.“We are going to see that at no stage our players are losing their focus due to the media attention or anything else. So I am going to restrict the promotional activities to short tenures, very often after the games,” he revealed.The prep of defending championsOver the last few weeks, Thipsay has put his efforts into focusing heavily on the current form of his players rather than relying on their classical reputations.“It’s important to prepare once we know who is playing whom,” Thipsay acknowledged. “The board order was disclosed, so we started personally preparing against those opponents. The Icon board would prepare against all the Icons, and so on. I personally look at the games of these players and shortcomings in their recent games. I focus on finding out shortcomings of the opponents in their recent rapid games, not the classical ones. So that is my strategy.”Is nothing going to stop Pipers then?With the preliminary double round-robin kicking off at The Lalit Ashok Bangalore, the major challenge for the Pipers is perhaps more of a psychological nature. The underdog plays with uninhibited freedom, while the favourite carries the weight of the result.“It’s general public psychology and, of course, player psychology that opponents do better against the defending champions or against a stronger team,” Thipsay reflected.“The opposition which we are going to face could be more fierce, more prepared, and more motivated when playing with us, simply because there is an opportunity to beat the defending champions.”Mitigating that threat for Thipsay means continuously reminding his superstar roster that past titles and Elo ratings offer zero safety once the clock starts ticking.“We have to take into account that the same opponents may not be so strong against other teams, but they could be strong against our team,” he warned. “The second challenge I see is that the fact that we won in the third season doesn’t mean that we’re going to win the fourth season. Our team will have to be careful about any overconfidence that comes from results in preliminaries or earlier tournaments. Every game is a different one, and how you played yesterday has no bearing over how you are going to play today.”As the clock ticks down to Round 1 in Bengaluru, the Alpine APL Pipers stand on the precipice of GCL history. On paper, they have constructed a masterpiece. On the board, the hard work begins all over again.“At the moment, we are well poised,” Thipsay concluded with trademark calmness. “The immediate goal is simple: finish in the top two in the preliminaries. Because after the preliminaries, there is no option. You have to try to be the champion.”
