For the second time in just three months, 16-year-old Indian Grandmaster Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu defeated world champion Magnus Carlsen, with the latest victory coming on Friday at the Chessable Masters online rapid chess tournament.
Praggnanadhaa closed out the win after Carlsen made a one-move mistake and misplayed his knight. The win gave the Indian three valuable points and kept alive his hopes of qualifying for the knockout stage.
“I’m not so thrilled about my game quality. I’m missing some stuff, some tricks and some tactics so tomorrow I need to be sharper,” the Indian teenager was quoted as saying by chess24.com.
.@ChampChessTour Chessable Masters R5-8: @rpragchess beats Carlsen again
— ChessBase India (@ChessbaseIndia) May 21, 2022
Exactly 3 months after his win at Airthings Masters, Pragg once again beat the world champion. This time the world #1 made a one-move blunder for which he said after the win,"I do not want to win that way!" pic.twitter.com/ijEnuj5d9G
In February this year, Praggnanandhaa had won praise for stunning world No 1 Carlsen in an online championship.
Praggnanandhaa, 16, who in 2016 became the youngest international master in history at age 10, had beaten Carlsen at the Airthings Masters rapid chess tournament.
Praggnanandhaa had told CNN after the 39-move victory playing black earlier this year that, “I usually I don’t celebrate things too much because, OK, this is just a win, and it’s just one win, and it’s a rapid game, so there are a lot more things to do and a lot more things to work on,”
On Friday, Carlsen had a stunned look on his face at the end as he realised he made a mistake while even Praggnanandhaa looked on rather quizzically. The commentators observed that it was a pattern that was starting to emerge in the legendary player’s game in the recent past.
But the champion and world No 1 bounced back quickly to win the next match of the day against USA’s Abhimanyu Mishra, world’s youngest GM.
Among Indians, others have beaten Carlsen – including Indians Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna – but Praggnanandhaa became the youngest to do so since the Norwegian became world champion in 2013.
You can watch the final stages of the match from around the 50-minute mark in the video below:
When the expression says it all!
— ChessBase India (@ChessbaseIndia) May 21, 2022
The moment when the World Champion blundered and @rpragchess scored another win over Magnus Carlsen! This time at the Chessable Masters!
Full video: https://t.co/96laiTquNR pic.twitter.com/9bPju5FMzZ
The standings for the tournament are here.