It was not just Nagalakshmi, his own mother, but all of India and Asia that looked at Praggnanandhaa with pride after he finished runner-up in the FIDE Chess World Cup on Thursday evening in Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku. Pragg lost to Magnus Carlsen, the Norwegian world No. 1, after a valiant contest that lasted two days and four games.
The final went into a two-game tie-break after the first two games failed to produce a winner. Carlsen won the first game and the second ended in a draw, giving him a hard-earned victory.
Praggnanandhaa had previously beaten Carlsen at the Airthings Masters rapid chess tournament in February 2022. At just 16, he was the youngest player to beat the Norwegian, until another Indian teenage prodigy, Dommaraju Gukesh, broke that record in October of the same year,
Seeded 31, Praggnanandhaa was the lowest-seeded player to make the finals of the World Cup, and had beaten Fabiano Caruana, the world No. 3, in the semi-finals, and Hikaru Nakamura, world No. 2, earlier to storm into the finals. Prior to Pragg, the legendary Viswanathan Anand was the only Indian to have made it to the World Cup finals, which he won in 2000 and 2002.
Pragg, who was born and raised in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, took an interest in chess after his older sister, Vaishali, also started playing at a tender age of six. By the time he was six, Praggnanandhaa had risen to fame when he came second in an all-India under-7 championship before winning gold at the Asian Championships. He then went on to win the World Youth Chess Championships in the under-8 and under-10 categories.
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By the age of 7, he had earned the title of FIDE Master, the third-highest title a chess player can achieve after the Grandmaster and International Master titles. At 10 years, 10 months and 19 days, Pragg created history as he became the youngest international chess master in 2016, when he won his 9th-round game at the KIIT International Chess Festival in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.
Thanks to making it to the World Cup finals, the Arjuna awardee became the third-youngest player after the legendary Bobby Fischer and Carlsen to qualify for the Candidates tournament, which will be held to find a challenger for Ding Liren, world champion, at the next World Chess Championship battle.
This tournament was a rather encouraging one for the young battalion from India, which saw four of its players making to the quarterfinals, including D Gukesh (17 years old), Arjun Erigaisi (19) and Vidit Gujrathi (28). These young lads have made chess cool again, both for budding players and as an interesting e-sport to watch for viewers across the world.
Let’s hope this trend continues and the talent pipeline is nurtured well so that India, where the game originated in the 6th century BC as Shatranjh or Chaturanga, becomes a global chess powerhouse.
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