Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa made history on Thursday as he clinched the silver medal at the FIDE Chess World Cup 2023 after finishing runners-up to world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in the final in Baku.
The teenage chess prodigy lost the first rapid game of the tiebreak before settling for a draw in the second to settle for second position against the Norwegian chess legend.
Nonetheless, Praggnanandhaa’s effort is being lauded by the entire world thanks to the 18-year-old’s record-breaking run in the tournament.
Praggnanandhaa’s defeated the likes of world No. 3 Fabiano Caruana and world No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura to reach the summit clash where he finally met his match in Carlsen, who has now won every major individual classical tournament, and completes chess.
Even though Praggnanandhaa couldn’t win the final, his efforts didn’t go unnoticed in a cricket-crazy country like India as famous personalities like Hrithik Roshan, Piyush Goyal and Yuzvendra Chahal took to social media to hail the Chennai-born chess prodigy who became Grandmaster at the age of 13.
R Praggnanandhaa’s road to World Cup final:
*Got a bye in first round.
*Defeated French Grandmaster Maxime Lagarde 1.5-0.5 in second round.
*Beat experienced Czech GM David Navara 1.5-0.5 in third round.
*Beat world No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura of USA 3-1 in fourth round.
*Beat Hungarian Ferenc Berkes 1.5-0.5 in fifth round.
*Registered a come-from-behind 5-4 win over compatriot Arjun Erigaisi in the sixth round.
*Beat Italian-American Grandmaster, Fabiano Caruana, ranked third in the world, 3.5-2.5 in the semifinal to become the youngest to reach the summit clash of the World Cup.
(To receive our E-paper on WhatsApp daily, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper’s PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
