Indian grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa hit the headlines yet again on Thursday, as he defeated Magnus Carlsen at Norway Chess 2024, securing his first-ever classical win over the Norwegian.
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The 18-year-old grandmaster from India has defeated Carlsen six times in the rapid/blitz formats, doing so for the first time in February 2022 at the Airthings Masters. This is their fourth meeting in classical chess, with the previous three matches ending in draws.
🚨HUGE BREAKING: 🇮🇳 GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu defeats 🇳🇴 GM Magnus Carlsen with the white pieces in the third round of @NorwayChess!
— Chess.com - India (@chesscom_in) May 29, 2024
This is @rpraggnachess's first win vs. Magnus in the classical format. Congratulations to Pragg on playing a great game! 👏
📸 @photochess pic.twitter.com/zB3yOhhoSD
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Who is R Praggnanandha?
Rameshbabu Praggnanandha is a name that has been familiar to chess enthusiasts for a while now.
Hailing from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, like India's most well known chess player Viswanathan Anand, Praggnanandha hit the headlines in 2016 when he became the youngest international master in chess history at the age of 10 years, 10 months and 19 days.
In 2018, he became the then-second youngest grandmaster in chess history, just two months shy of his 13th birthday. Since then Abhimanyu Mishra, Gukesh D and Javokhir Sindarov have all beaten his record.
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Praggnanandha's elder sister, R Vaishali, is also a Woman Grandmaster and International Master.
When Pragg accompanied his sister Vaishali & parents to @DeccanChronicle office in Chennai on August 27, 2012. Chess official D.V. Sundar asked me to see if I could write a feature on the siblings. The next day I wrote a story with this headline: Siblings Vaishali & Prag make… pic.twitter.com/6JECF4FdwD
— T.N. Raghu (@tnrags) August 21, 2023
How many titles has R Praggnanadha won?
Praggnanandha has won three world titles at youth level; U8 in 2013, U10 in 2015 and U18 in 2019. In 2019, he won the Xtracon Chess Open, going unbeaten throughout the tournament to finish with 8.5/10 points.
In 2022, Praggnanandha won the Asian Continental Chess Championship. He will now be looking to add the World Cup to his trophy case, with Magnus Carlsen standing in the way.
Last year, Praggnanandha became youngest player ever to make it to a World Cup final. He is also the first Indian to qualify for the World Cup final in its current format. The initial two tournaments in a different format were both won by Viswanathan Anand, in 2000 and 2022.
In a sensational run in the tournament, the Indian defeated World No 2 Fabiano Caruana and world No 3 Hikaru Nakamura to make it to the final. However, he went down to the top-ranked Magnus Carlsen in the summit clash.