India’s chess grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa recorded his second win over World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen within just three days during the Las Vegas leg of the Freestyle Chess event. The young Indian star had earlier defeated Carlsen in 39 moves during a classification game earlier in the week, securing third place and a spot in the quarter-finals.
On Saturday, July 19, Praggnanandhaa once again got the better of Carlsen, forcing him to resign after 43 moves in their first playoff game. Ranked fourth, the Indian prodigy dominated the center of the board with three connected pawns. Carlsen made a bold decision on move 18, sacrificing his queen in exchange for a bishop and knight. While the Norwegian seemed to gain control briefly, the turning point came on move 41 when Praggnanandhaa regained the advantage. The game appeared headed for checkmate when Carlsen was left with no escape and eventually resigned.
This win adds to Praggnanandhaa’s growing list of triumphs over Carlsen. His first came during the 2022 Champions Chess Tour, and he followed it up with his first classical win at the 2024 Norway Chess tournament.
Carlsen suffers from nervous breakdown
Magnus Carlsen kicked off his campaign at the Las Vegas leg of the Freestyle Tour with a pair of early wins. But momentum quickly shifted as he suffered back-to-back losses against R. Praggnanandhaa and Wesley So. After drawing two more games, the world No. 1 found himself in urgent need of a win—and delivered by defeating Bibisara Assaubayeva.
However, his hopes of progressing were dashed when he lost both playoff games to Levon Aronian, who went on to secure the final qualifying spot from the White Group.
During an interview on the YouTube handle of Freestyle Chess, Carlsen said he started off well, but he got himself into a nervous breakdown and was unable to contact his coach or wife.
“I think it started well (on Day 1). I felt all right, relatively rested, at least compared to other days. And then I don’t know, I didn’t enjoy the whole process of just being pretty isolated there for many, many hours and not being able to talk to Peter (coach Peter Heine Nielsen) or Ella (wife Ella Malone) in between rounds and not being able to use my devices and so on. What happened then was just kind of a complete collapse of my nervous system,” Carlsen said.
“I could have scraped through, of course, with some help, but it would have been completely underserved. So, it was a complete collapse, and yeah, sometimes you have one bad day, and I’ve had that in Freestyle before in the preliminaries, but then there’s been a bit of a wider margin to get through. This time it wasn’t. It’s not an excuse. I should make it regardless,” he concluded.
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