A day after earning his third norm, India’s latest chess Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa – the second youngest GM in history – won the Gredine Open title in Italy on Sunday to cap off what has been a memorable week for the 12-year-old.

Praggnanandhaa was assured his third GM norm once the pairing for the final round was announced as he was set to play Dutch GM Roeland Pruijssers. On Sunday, he defeated the Roeland to finish with 7.5 points out of the possible nine and ended the tournament joint-top with Croatian GM Ivan Saric.

While Praggnanandhaa started the tournament as the sixth seed, he enjoyed an impressive week that put him in the history books as the youngest GM in Indian history, and finished joint-top with the first seed Saric.

To become a GM you need to earn three norms and a 2500 rating. He had won his first GM norm at the World Junior Championships in Tarvisio in November 2017. He achieved his second norm by winning the Herkalion Fischer Memorial GM Norm tournament in Greece in April this year. The third norm was completed in Italy this week.

Praggnanandhaa’s coach at Chess Gurukul in Chennai, RB Ramesh, said he was delighted with his ward’s achievement. “I am happy and relieved because he was getting close and missing narrowly on a few occasions,” he told Scroll.

Read more: The story of Chess Gurukul, a nursery for India’s brightest talent.