R Praggnanandhaa: 16-year-old’s chess prowess is a result of grit, hard work and fearlessness

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa of India scored a stunning victory over reigning World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway in 39 moves with black pieces in the eighth round of the preliminary stage of the Airthings Masters chess tournament being held online. The tournament is the first of the nine events of the $1.6 million 2022 Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, scheduled to be held through February to November 2022. The event is held under the time control of 15 minutes per game per player, with a ten second increment after each move.

How do we contextualize Praggnanandhaa’s win against Carlsen with black pieces in an individual game?

File image of Magnus Carslen playing against R Praggnanandhaa. Twitter/@tatasteelchess

World Champion since 2013, who has clocked the highest Elo rating of 2882 reached by any player in the history of the game, Carlsen is considered to be one of the greatest players ever, expected to break most of the records of longevity and peaks of chess. In the year 2021, he played a total of 378 official online and physical tournament games in the classic and rapid time controls, out of which he scored 144 wins and 176 draws, and suffered a total of 58 losses. Among them, he suffered just two losses when playing white pieces against players below Elo 2700, that too to Vladislav Artemiev of Russia who was rated just a shade below the mark with a rating of 2699. In that context, ‘Pragg’ with a current rating of 2612 can be considered one of the most noteworthy conquerors of the world champion.

Also, Pragg (16) is only the third Indian apart from Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna to have defeated Carlsen in a tournament game.

A careful analysis of the game reveals that, even with black pieces, Pragg was looking for active play from the early stages of the Queen’s Gambit Tarrasch Defence encounter. Giving up a pawn for positional compensation, Pragg boldly created a passed pawn in the centre, using it as a pivot to transfer his pieces towards the Carlsen’s king to weave a successful mating attack. To willingly create such material imbalances on the board for dynamic compensation is a sign of deep understanding of the game.

The Airthings Masters features 16 of some of the most elite players of the world including Carlsen, Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia (Carlsen’s challenger at the Dubai World Championship held during January 2021), Ding Liren of China, Anish Giri of Netherlands, Levon Aronian of USA and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan – six of the top nine players of the world. ‘Pragg’ finds himself in an elite company of Grandmasters with an average rating of Elo 2708 in the tournament. He is the third lowest rated player with an Elo rating of 2612, Carlsen being the top seed at 2865, a whopping 243 points separating them.

Carlsen is no stranger to Pragg’s onslaughts. In the previous year’s Champions Chess Tour, Pragg received a wildcard invitation to the New In Chess Classic leg of the tour in April 2021, where he clashed with Carlsen for the first time ever. In a rapid chess game, Pragg and Carlsen played a memorable 80-move draw. The encounter was significant as Pragg held a slight advantage and twice spurned the chance to let the game end in a draw. Even when Carlsen repeated the position two times thus signaling his willingness for a draw, Pragg varied on the third move both the times and chose different continuations signaling his desire to play for a win – a third repetition of a photographic position on the chess board automatically results in a draw as per rules.

Such fearlessness at such a young age, would not have been lost on Carlsen.

File image of R Praggnanandhaa. Image courtesy Amruta Mokal

Pragg scored a win against Levon Aronian in the fifth round here at the Airthings Masters, which went largely unnoticed in the excitement of his win against Carlsen. Pragg played in an exemplary fashion with White, targeting Black’s weaknesses and even sacrificing pawns to gain strong squares, thus keeping up the pressure on Aronian for the entire length of 80 moves to win a strategic masterpiece. It was termed as ‘positional punishment’ by American Grandmaster and commentator Alex Yermolinsky.

The tournament has been a grueling schedule for Pragg compared to European players, as he starts the first game at 10.30 pm in the night, the fourth and final game of the day ending anywhere around  02.30 AM the next day. Pragg and his coach Grandmaster RB Ramesh cleverly designed training schedules for a couple of weeks in advance, conducting their practice sessions at the same time in the night as the tournament thus modifying the chess practice, sleeping hours and food cycles as per the playing schedule enabling the youngster to perform at his best.

Ramesh also arranged for a few top players in the world to play practice matches against Pragg as warm-up, at the same hour of the tournament under the same time control. Such capacity for hard work and attention to details by the coach and his ward are fundamentals to Pragg’s successes so far in his career. Ramesh being one of the best trainers in the world who has produced innumerable talents, has been a shot in the arm for Pragg’s chess development. For example, even at such a high pressure event, Ramesh is reminding Pragg on technical tasks: clock management, not to let a loss affect following games, utilization of space advantage…

At the same time, he is understandably happy with Pragg’s victories, “Beating Carlsen and Aronian will do a world of good for Pragg’s confidence. Beating two players from the top ten in the world in the same day will bring him the confidence that he can beat others too.”

Pragg earned his spot in the tour by winning the Challengers Chess Tour that concluded in October 2021, emerging as the winner from a total of five tournaments featuring some of the best global junior talents.

Pragg’s first big break into elite tournaments was when he got an invitation to participate in the annual Tata Steel Chess Masters at Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands, dubbed as the ‘Wimbledon of chess’ just a month ago. Lowest rated in the field, Pragg proved his mettle with a win against fellow-countryman Vidit Gujrathi, currently the second highest rated Indian after Anand.

For a promising youngster, such breaks have come at the right moment, which is crucial for his future journey.

Nagalakshmi (L), Vaishali, R Praggnanandhaa and Rameshbabu. Image courtesy V Saravanan

Pragg learnt chess at the age of three-and-a-half by watching his sister Vaishali play, and was initially trained by Velayudham of Bloom Chess Academy of Chennai. His chess journey started in earnest when he won the World Under-8 championship in 2013 and started getting trained by Ramesh thereafter, along with his sister. Vaishali won the World Under-12 in 2012, and World Under-14 in 2015, and also became a Woman International Master. Pragg won the World Under-10 title in 2015, and became the youngest International Master ever in the history of the game in 2016 at the age of 10.

Such monumental achievements brought in crucial support. P.R.Venketrama Raja, the founder of the Chennai-based software company Ramco Systems, generously offered his sponsorship for the siblings which he has maintained to this day. The financial support extended by Raja, an erstwhile president of the All India Chess Federation and an avid chess lover, has been a crucial for Pragg and Vaishali.

Pragg’s father Rameshbabu has been disabled since young due to Polio, and is a bank employee. The children have been travelling all over the world with their mother, Nagalakshmi. Ramesh points out that many sacrifices by the family and support from many quarters have been crucial for Pragg’s development.

Pragg subsequently became the youngest Grandmaster of India in 2018, while Vaishali became a Woman Grandmaster in 2018 and an International Master in 2021.

WestBridge Capital, an investment firm, established the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy, where the former Indian World Champion started a mentorship programme for some of the top juniors of India, including Vaishali and Pragg since 2019.

Pragg’s victory against Carlsen has ushered in congratulations from various quarters, including some of the most prolific Indian sports personalities:

With such recognitions, career-breaks and support systems, Indian chess can confidently look forward to young Praggnanandhaa reaching the summit of chess some time in the future.

International Master Venkatachalam Saravanan is a chess player, chess trainer, commentator, writer and columnist on chess, based at Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He is a regular freelance writer for Chessbase and Chessbase India.