Praggnanandhaa finishes second in Chessable Masters final

CHENNAI: Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa aka Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa lost to China's Ding Liren in the end of the 2-day final of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Chessable Masters tournament on Friday.

“Game 4 ends in a draw which means @rpragchess wins the 2nd match in the Chessable Masters' finals. The winner will now be decided in Blitz. What an incredible performance by Pragg - are we watching a future World Champion in action?” Meltwater Champions Chess Tour tweeted.

The Chessable Master Online Chess Tournament, which features the top 16 players in the world, began last February. R Praggnanandhaa, a 16-year-old from Chennai, also took part in the tournament which was played in 9 series in total. In the quarterfinals last Tuesday, Praggnanandhaa defeated China's Wei Yi entered semi-finals of Chessable Masters 2022.

Following this, he faced Anish Giri of the Netherlands in the semi-finals and defeated him 1.5 - 0.5 in a tie-breaker and storms into the final. Meanwhile, in another semi-final match, China's Ding Liren clashed with world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and deafeated the World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen 2.5-1.5 after winning the fourth 15-minute rapid game in the other semi-final.

Then, Praggnanandhaa played with Chinese player Ding Liren in the final. The first set of the match was won by Chinese player Ding Liran, leading Praggnanandhaa forced to capture the next set.

However, he did not let him win easily. Although Ding won the first set, he played aggressively in the next set and stunned Ding. Ranked 4th in the round robin competition. He defeated Wei Yi and Anish Giri in the knockout round. Ding Liran won the tiebreaker at the end of a 2-day online final.

The 44th Chess Olympiad will be held at Mamallapuram next to Chennai from July 28 to August 10. 303 teams from more than 160 countries have registered for the tournament. Praggnanandhaa is the first Indian to qualify for the final of the Champions Chess Tour. In 2 months time, he will be ready to play in the Chess Olympiad to be held in Chennai.

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