Praggnanandhaa relishing his time in the limelight

KOLKATA:AFTER Nihal Sarin made an impressive debut in the Tata Steel Chess India 2018, his first super tournament at home, it was time for another chess prodigy to take a bow in the country’s biggest chess tournament. R Praggnanandhaa, the 13-year-old from Tamil Nadu — who is currently the second youngest Grandmaster the game has ever had — too was not overawed by the enormity of the task of facing some of the strongest players in the world, just like his rival from Kerala.

He did show some nerves initially, starting with two defeats but came back to score two wins and also hold world No 3 Hikaru Nakamura, the winner in the rapid section. “I was a bit nervous initially but that was to be expected. I wanted to perform well as it was a challenge for me to take on so many GMS in one tournament. Overall, I am happy with the way things have gone in the first nine games,” said Praggnanandhaa.

For the young Grandmaster, his win against Sergey Karjakin was very satisfactory not only because it came against the record holder but also because it was his first win in the tournament. He later defeated Surya Shekhar Ganguly and ended the day with 3.5 points from a possible nine.

Praggnanandhaa’s coach GM RB Ramesh was satisfied with the quality of his play in the last five rounds on Tuesday.

“The second half of first day was better than the first. He played more active in the second half while in the first few rounds, he was very passive and playing for draw. Overall, I am happy with his performance.

“If I have to pick one game in which he played really well then that would be the one against Vidit Santosh Gujrathi as he had lost to him playing the same line in the Isle of Man tournament and lost. Today, he played some different moves and held Vidit to draw,” said Ramesh, who has been working with Praggnanandhaa for four years now.

With the spotlight on young Praggnanandhaa, Viswanathan Anand was happy to be back among the players in the lead. “It feels good though I can’t say the same for the last game of the day (against Levon Aronian that Anand lost very badly). But overall it was nice to have some wins under my belt,” said the 48-yearold from Chennai.

Quizzed about his game against Praggnanandha, who wasn’t even born when the Anand won the first of his five classical World Championships titles, Anand said: “He completely outplayed me in the opening and my only option was to sacrifice an exchange,” said Anand. While Anand lost some momentum after the fifth round, Wesley So, ranked 15th in the world in blitz, bounced back from an indifferent start with three wins in the last three games of the day to be placed second in the standings.