NEW DELHI: You keep in mind the picture that made rounds on social media final April, simply after Vaishali Rameshbabu, Praggnanandhaa’s elder sister, had landed on the Chennai airport with the Ladies’s Candidates medal wrapped round her neck. It was a photograph of her household.Praggnanandhaa was there too, his facial gesture mirroring something however the sorrow of an underwhelming marketing campaign within the open class of the Candidates, his hand holding a placard congratulating his sister on her homecoming.
A household picture after Vaishali’s Ladies’s Candidates win (Tushar Damor/ChessBase India)
If that was Vaishali’s second, Praggnanandhaa’s is now.Late Thursday in St Louis, he beat Fabiano Caruana 15-13 to win the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) Finals, becoming the first Indian and only the seventh player in the tournament’s 11-year history to do it.The prize cash was $200,000. However much more than the prize cash, it’s a few 21-year-old who considerably imploded on the 2026 Candidates and now sits, by one of many sport’s most revered judges, on the high of the world.Throughout an interplay with TimesofIndia.com, Viswanathan Anand, who is about to return to the board with Alaskan Knights for the brand new season of the World Chess League (GCL) this September, assessed Praggnanandhaa’s turnaround since that Candidates low.“Through the Candidates, he was having a type of hunch,” the previous five-time World Chess Champion stated. “His play had already began to say no on the finish of final 12 months, in comparison with the primary half, however within the Candidates, it was actually not very spectacular. After which I believed he should have been a bit gloomy.”
I believe for the time being, I might say he (Pragg) is the primary participant on the planet.
Viswanathan Anand, former five-time World Chess Champion
What adopted, in Anand’s telling, was one thing nearer to a sample than a one-off restoration.“In Norway Chess, he was not doing effectively. In some unspecified time in the future, there have been 4 rounds left, and he was within the backside. After which he gained 4 video games in a row,” Anand defined. “He did one thing related right here, although his efficiency was significantly better in Grand Chess Tour and in addition within the Speedy. He gained the Speedy, did effectively sufficient within the Blitz to win the match. Then he was form of competing for first place right here.”It is the form of those comebacks that Anand retains returning to. “He has this capability, and it is turning into an increasing number of noticeable that he is in a position to win late video games and alter every thing,” he remarked. “And that is a really, very uncommon talent and helpful talent to have.”Then got here the road that can comply with Praggnanandhaa into the Olympiad subsequent month. “I believe for the time being, I might say he is the primary participant on the planet,” Anand advised this web site with utmost authority.“Nicely, Magnus would not compete in the identical occasions, however nonetheless, you recognize, when you take classical included, and I do know Pragg, within the tournaments which occurred in August and all, he carried out extremely effectively. In the event you return to Norway Chess after which see the event from there, I believe it is simply improbable.”It is not an idle comparability. Praggnanandhaa’s street to St Louis ran by way of 27 fast and blitz video games, 9 classical video games, and 16 extra throughout the semifinals and ultimate. He arrived having already crushed Magnus Carlsen twice in classical chess in Norway earlier this 12 months, together with a stretch of 4 straight classical wins to shut out Oslo.
R Praggnanandhaa (Picture by Lennart Ootes)
Within the GCT ultimate itself, he misplaced the opening classical recreation to Caruana and fumbled a possible equaliser within the second earlier than discovering his footing, profitable each fast video games to grab management, then holding the four-game blitz part to a 4-4 draw to shut it out.He’d already avenged a bruising from World Championship Challenger Javokhir Sindarov, who beat him twice on the Cyprus Candidates, by ending joint-first with him on the Sinquefield Cup.ALSO READ: Praggnanandhaa’s invisible second: The making of Vaibhav SuriHe’d been crushed there by Vincent Keymer, too, earlier than eliminating the German within the GCT semifinal.For a participant whose technical vary and common fashion have lengthy had specialists ranking him probably the most full of India’s younger elite, the Candidates collapse had appeared just like the one hole within the resume. St Louis simply closed it, in entrance of the one man whose phrase on the topic nonetheless carries probably the most weight in Indian chess.
