WORLD champion Magnus Carlsen sat amazed, palms on his face, after realising that he was going to lose the eighth round of the Airthings Masters online rapid chess tournament, he was shocked to see his would-be slayer R Praggnanandhaa. Wide-eyed and unable to fathom what had unrolled on the other side of the screen in Oslo, he covered his mouth with his hands in the 2 am silence of his home in the Chennai suburb of Padi.
Praggnanandhaa was so drained by the exacting game of quick wits that all he wanted was to catch some sleep. “I just want to hit the bed,” he told the International Chess Federation. It’s likely that he wouldn’t have gotten any sleep at all.
It was the moment that was always a part of his wildest dream. Norwegian World No 1 Carlsen, the undisputed emperor of chess, a bonafide GOAT, the marketing face of the game, was always his idol. “Beating him once is my biggest dream,” he had told after becoming the second youngest Grandmaster in the world four years ago. “Carlsen has a solution for even the most complicated problem,” he said.
But this time, there was no solution and Praggnanandhaa’s dream was finally realised. That he’s just the third Indian, after Viswanathan Anand and P Harikrishna, to accomplish the rare feat of beating Carlsen underlines his incredible potential. That he toppled him in 39 moves and with black pieces, a perceived handicap in the game, brightens the dazzle of his victory.
Aggressive from the start, he pushed Carlsen onto the back foot but missed a glorious chance to kill the game in the middle stage. But he regained his wits and bounced back, piling relentless pressure on Carlsen, who cracked and blundered.
India has discovered a potential successor to Anand as well as a poster boy for the imminent chess boom in the country — the Indian Chess League is set to unroll from June with a prize money of at least Rs 2 crore.
Outside the close-knit chess fraternity, he was almost a forgotten figure after narrowly losing the race against time to become the youngest Grandmaster in history, a record then held by Sergiy Karjakin before it was claimed by American prodigy Abhimanyu Mishra. The world often forgot that he was still a child, not even a teenager, and the expectations were often unrealistic.
“There was no unnecessary distraction and he could focus entirely on his game. He was not obsessed with that record, but there was too much attention on him. But after that, he was certainly more relaxed and put in a lot of hard work,” Ramesh Babu, his father.
“He is always cheerful and willing to learn, especially from his mistakes. He hates losing games, but does not sulk and moves forward. These traits will ensure that he would be a top player in the future,” childhood coach R B Ramesh had told earlier.
Anand had picked him and Iranian-French GM Alireza Firouzja as the future stars of chess, took him under his wings for the Chess Olympiad and smoothened the rough edges, tendency to make hasty moves and embrace risks. Adding caution to his aggression made him a better player.
Carlsen was not the only elite player he scaled in the tournament. Hours before beating him, he had defeated Armenian GM Levon Aronian, Wesley So and Michal Krasenkow. He has broken into the 2600 Elo pointing ceiling, a rarefied space in chess.
He is just 16. At this age, Anand was not yet a Grandmaster. But despite the number of points he may go on to pile up in his career, or whoever he would defeat in the future he wants to be a world champion he will not forget the first time he beat Carlsen, his hero and inspiration.
