Who is Praggnanandhaa; 16-year-old GM who beat No.1 Carlsen in online chess tournament

Praggnanandhaa halted Carlsen's three-game winning streak on the second day of the 16-player all-play-all online tournament which is part of the Champions Chess Tour.

Both Pragg, the youngest player in the field, and Carlsen had a rough first day of the event which has four games played on each of three days (Feb 19-21) of the preliminary stage while three rounds will be played on Tuesday (Feb 22).

A champion meets his match

Carlsen had racked up three wins in a row as he charged up the points table of the event hosted by his company Play Magnus Group. But then he ran into Praggnanandhaa in the eighth round and stumbled again as the Indian player capitalised on a blunder by the reigning world No. 1 to record his first win against Carlsen in any format of chess.

After losing three successive games on Sunday night, the Indian Grandmaster from Chennai ran into Carlsen and scored a memorable win.

Opting for Tarrasch variation in French Defence, Praggnanandhaa got an advantage as Carlsen blundered and the Indian won in 39 moves. This was his second win in eight games in this event.

Who is Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa?

The 16-year-old chess prodigy is the fifth-youngest person to achieve the title of Grandmaster after Abhimanyu Mishra, Sergey Karjakin, Gukesh D and Javokhir Sindarov. He was born in Chennai on August 10, 2005. He is the younger brother of Indian chess player Vaishali Rameshbabu.

His victory against the world champion, makes Praggnanandhaa the third Indian player to win a game against Carlsen.

Besides, he has also won the World Youth Chess Championship Under-8 title in 2013 as well as the Under-10 title in 2015. In 2016, he was the youngest international master in history and achieved his first grandmaster norm in November 2017.

In the Chess World Cup 2021, he even defeated GM Gabriel Sargissian and GM Michal Krasenkow. In the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022, he won against Andrey Esipenko, Vidit Gujrathi, and Nils Grandelius.

(Additional agency inputs included)