Global Chess League 2026 Teams and Squads

How a Global Chess League squad is built

Every team in the GCL fields the same six boards. The Icon is the marquee player and plays board one. Two Superstar men and two Superstar women fill the middle boards, and a Prodigy takes the sixth. The women's boards are not a side event: their game points go into the same match score as everyone else's, which is why squads are built around six players rather than one.

Teams retain players from the previous season before the draft, then fill the rest from the pool. Triveni Continental Kings and the Mumba Masters kept four each for 2026; the Gambits kept one. Full format and scoring is on the Global Chess League 2026 page.

Alpine APL Pipers (Alpine SG Pipers)

Coach: Pravin Thipsay. Retained before the draft: Anish Giri. Previous seasons: 2025 (Mumbai): champions, as Alpine SG Pipers; 2024 (London): third.

• —Defending champions, and the first team to hold the title going into a season with Carlsen on board one.
• —Carlsen and Giri play on the same team for the first time.
• —Divya Deshmukh and Koneru Humpy on the two women's boards is the strongest Indian women's pairing in the league.

Triveni Continental Kings

Coach: Loek van Wely. Retained before the draft: Alireza Firouzja, Wei Yi, Zhu Jiner, Alexandra Kosteniuk. Previous seasons: 2025 (Mumbai): runners-up; 2024 (London): champions; 2023 (Dubai): champions.

• —The only two-time champion in the league, and the only team to reach three finals in three seasons.
• —Four players retained, the most continuity of any 2026 squad.
• —A third title would make Triveni the team the league is measured against.

FYERS American Gambits

Coach: Srinath Narayanan. Retained before the draft: Bibisara Assaubayeva. Previous seasons: 2025 (Mumbai): reached the round-robin top four; 2024 (London): fourth.

• —Zapp Chess is an official partner of the FYERS American Gambits for Season 4.
• —Sindarov arrives as the reigning Candidates winner, weeks before his World Championship match.
• —Sindarov and Bibisara Assaubayeva are a couple, and now play on the same team.

Zapp Chess is an official partner of the Gambits for Season 4. More on the squad, the owners and the partnership on the FYERS American Gambits page.

Ganges Grandmasters

Coach: B. Adhiban. Retained before the draft: Polina Shuvalova, Stavroula Tsolakidou. Previous seasons: 2025 (Mumbai): mid-table; 2024 (London): sixth.

• —Nepomniachtchi and Aronian give the Ganges the most experienced pair of men's boards in the league.
• —Leon Mendonca is the prodigy board, in front of a home crowd.

PBG Alaskan Knights

Coach: Swayams Mishra. Retained before the draft: Arjun Erigaisi, Kateryna Lagno. Previous seasons: 2025 (Mumbai): mid-table; 2024 (London): runners-up, and top of the round-robin table.

• —Anand in new colours: he moves to the Alaskan Knights for Season 4.
• —Anand and Arjun Erigaisi on the same team, 39 years apart.
• —Erdogmus and Abhimanyu Mishra make this the youngest pair of boards in the league.

CheQ Mumba Masters (upGrad Mumba Masters)

Coach: P. Harikrishna. Retained before the draft: Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Harika Dronavalli, Bardiya Daneshvar. Previous seasons: 2025 (Mumbai): led the round-robin table at the halfway point; 2023 (Dubai): runners-up, as upGrad Mumba Masters.

• —Four players retained, second only to Triveni.
• —Mamedyarov coaches Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, who plays for the Alaskan Knights: trainer against pupil when the teams meet.

Who is not playing in 2026

Several names from previous seasons are absent from the Season 4 squads: R Praggnanandhaa, who was Season 1 MVP, Hikaru Nakamura, who was the Gambits' Icon in 2025, D Gukesh, Fabiano Caruana and Hou Yifan, joint Season 3 MVP. Magnus Carlsen moves the other way: he sat out Season 3 and returns for Season 4.

Squad questions