India’s young Grandmaster R. Praggnanandhaa hogged international limelight with his shock win over World Number One and five-time World champion Magnus Carlsen in the Airthings Masters online rapid chess tournament recently.
The 16-year-old from Chennai was pleasantly surprised with the calls and congratulatory messages he received after the famous victory. “I didn’t expect it, given that it is an online tournament. It shows the popularity of chess and it is certainly growing,” said Praggnanandhaa in a conversation with The Hindu here on Friday, after being felicitated by Rela Hospital, who gave Rs. 1 Lakh to the GM.
Praggnanandhaa said he hopes to cross the Elo rating of 2700 by the end of the year, taking motivation from current World No. 2 Alireza Firouzja of Iran, who has had a rapid growth.
“Reza is a tactically sharp player, who moved to France, and he is only 18 years of age. From a rating of 2600 he directly went to 2750 in a period of one and a half years. The tournaments that he played, he played very well. He is a huge motivation for me,” said Praggnanandhaa, whose rating is 2618.
According to Praggnanandhaa, he has played a total of 28 games — a majority of them been against the World’s top players — in the Tata Steel tournament [in Kolkata] and the Airthings Masters . This, he felt has sharpened his game. “Overall I played decently. There were games where I was in a strong position but couldn’t win. I could have done better,” he said.
