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Global Chess League, Bangalore 2026

I went to the 2026 Tech Mahindra Global Chess League at The Lalit Ashok in Bangalore on 2 different days. I mostly wanted to see Magnus play in person and hopefully get his autograph.

Tickets

I took passes for 2 days:

  1. 5th September, Day 1: CheQ Mumba Masters vs Alpine APL Pipers. This was a general ticket for INR 399, and cost INR 430.86 after the convenience fee.
  2. 8th September, Day 4: Triveni Continental Kings vs Alpine APL Pipers. This was a premium ticket for INR 2,999, and cost INR 3,239.72 after the convenience fee. This did give me access to all 4 matches of the day though, as well as access to premium rows in the match hall.

5th September - Day 1

I went with Aman Mahajan (my friend from Yugabyte) for the Magnus game at 6:30 PM. We saw the whole match from inside the match arena.

After the match, we came outside for autographs, but the Magnus craze was insane. Extremely insane crowd.

We were able to get Vidit bhai's autograph because he came late and alone, since he was the Player of the Match lol.

After that, we went inside and got Sagar bhai's autograph too.

I had GOOSEBUMPS when I saw Magnus in-person for the first time while being seated inside the match arena, when he and his team entered the match hall. The crowd cheers were INSANE. It was soooo much fun to be in a crowd that appreciated the GOAT that Magnus is!!!

It was also great to see other folks like Anish, Vidit, Divya, Humpy, MVL, etc in-person. But Magnus is Magnus!!!

8th September - Day 4

This was a super fun day. I had realised on 5th September that you cannot get autographs if you watch the games from the match arena.

So for this day, my strategy was to stay in the fan zone area, and go out at the match exit area lane thingy around 20 minutes prior to the end of the game.

I made some new friends in the fan zone or in the autograph waiting area, namely: Suman, Anand, Aditya, Aakash.

I did go into the Magnus vs Alireza game at 6:30 since I wanted to try out the premium seats. I sat in the 3rd row (premium row), and came out after 15 minutes to stand in the autograph area.

Chess autographs

I got a total of 18 autographs on my chessboard!

  1. a4: Sagar
  2. f3: Arjun
  3. c8: Vidit
  4. f1: Adhiban
  5. g2: Levon
  6. h7: MVL
  7. f7: Harika
  8. g6: Carissa Yip
  9. h5: Bardiya Daneshvar
  10. b7: Humpy
  11. c6: Anish
  12. d7: Wei Yi
  13. c2: Vishy Sir
  14. b1: Sara
  15. a6: Sindarov
  16. a8: Alexandra Kosteniuk
  17. b3: Nino Batsiashvili
  18. d1: Daniil Dubov

Kind players

  1. Divya: It was so much fun to see her doing so many autographs and taking so many pictures, especially with young kids. She always took time for the kids.
  2. Sara: She was so kind. She signed every autograph calmly and with a smile. She even said "I'm sorry" when someone from her team called her to the cab and she couldn't sign all the boards.
  3. Levon: He was super kind. He told us he'd be back for autographs because he had to leave for the player-of-the-match / winning-team ceremony thing. He actually came back, signed autographs, and clicked photos with a lot of fans.
  4. Harika: Super kind, same as Levon. She told us she'd be back for autographs and she did come back.

Players who didn't seem to care at all

  1. Nepo
  2. Dubov in his first match of the day. He did sign autographs after his 2nd match.
  3. Sindarov in his first match of the day. He did sign autographs after his 2nd match.
  4. Erdogmus
  5. Nihal in his first match of the day. He did sign autographs after his 2nd match.
  6. Abhimanyu Mishra
  7. Volodar Murzin

The Magnus autograph chase

I was soooo close to getting an autograph from Magnus. He signed for sooo many people next to me but skipped me, twice :sob:

I later found the whole thing in the official Day 4 broadcast.

There is also another video in which my voice is there at around 3:35. I'm shouting "Flag Alireza" to Magnus, to which he looked at me and smiled. The context here is that Magnus, when asked before the tournament "what are you looking forward to the most in this tournament", answered with "I want to flag the shit out of Alireza" lol.

The stupid VIP lounge situation

Premium pass = VIP lounge access. I DID NOT KNOW THIS because the reception desk was shit.

The VIP lounge had "entry only for pass holders" written in huge letters, and then "VIP Lounge" written in extremely small letters below it. The actual building was also kinda hidden behind trees, so it wasn't easy to figure out that the VIP lounge was there.

I found out only around the 4th round that there was indeed a VIP lounge, and that the player lounge was inside it. Most of the players were coming from there. I asked the person seated there whether Magnus had also been there and he said yes. Sighs only.

I'm not saying that going into the VIP lounge would've guaranteed a Magnus autograph, but it would've been one more opportunity. It was much less crowded there, with barely single-digit people around.

And I had specifically asked the entrance desk about the VIP lounge! They told me the premium ticket only meant access to all 4 matches and some front-row seats. The 2 other people with premium passes who were with me also had no idea about the lounge. What the hell, man.

The official digital autograph

After missing out on the physical autograph, I decided to email Henrik Carlsen. I told him that I had visited the GCL on Saturday and Tuesday but hadn't been able to get Magnus's autograph on my chessboard, despite coming very close on Tuesday.

His team actually replied! They said that Magnus gets a huge number of autograph requests and that they couldn't arrange physical autographs or a meeting during his extremely tight GCL schedule. Fair enough. But they sent me Magnus's official digital autograph instead!

Other random things

  1. Played 2 matches in the Festival Arena with Suman, won both. Played 1 match in the Festival Arena with Aditya, lost that one.
  2. Made friends with one of the people in the volunteering team, his name was Anay. He shook Magnus's hand, I shook his hand, lol.
  3. Took a photo with Tania Sachdev.
  4. My black marker dried by the end of the 2nd round, so I had to switch to a blue marker. Meanwhile, Anand had a much thicker marker which was much better. So next time, get a thicker marker instead of the thin 0.8 mm or whatever marker I had this time. The thicker marker looks much more readable as well.
  5. Got Sindarov, Harika, and Levon's autographs for Aman Mahajan as well. He desperately wanted Sindarov's autograph lol.

Strategy for the next tournament

  1. Skip the end of the games and start waiting at the autograph area around 20 minutes before the games are expected to end.
  2. Check every single benefit included with the ticket on my own instead of trusting the reception desk.
  3. Find the VIP lounge immediately if the pass includes access to it.
  4. Carry a thick permanent marker. The signatures look much more readable.
  5. Carry backup markers.

Anyway, despite the Magnus autograph heartbreak and the stupid VIP lounge situation, it was a really fun couple of days. I got to watch Magnus and so many other top players in person, filled a chessboard with autographs, made new friends, and even got an official Magnus digital autograph in the end. Pretty good overall!

One big takeaway for me was that getting Magnus's autograph is achievable, so I look forward to catching him in some other tournament one day!