Young Praggnanandhaa leaves Anand gushing with opening
KOLKATA:AFTER Nihal Sarin made an impressive debut in the Tata Steel Chess India, his first super tournament at home, it was time for another chess prodigy to take a bow in the country’s biggest chess event .
And just like his rival from Kerala, R Praggnanandhaa, the 13-year-old from Tamil Nadu who is currently the third youngest Grandmaster the game has ever had, too was not overawed by the stage.
“I was a bit nervous initially. I wanted to perform well as it was a challenge for me to take on so many GMS and such strong players in one tournament. Overall, I am happy with the way things have gone in the first nine games,” said Praggnanandhaa.
He said the 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.
RAMESH HAPPY
Praggnanandhaa’s coach for the last four years GM RB Ramesh said: “The second half was better than the first. He played more active while in the first few rounds, he was playing for draw. If I have to pick one game in which he played really well then that would be the one against Vidit Gujrathi as he had lost to him playing the same line in Isle of Man. Today, he held Vidit.”
With the spotlight on 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). But overall it was nice to have some wins under my belt,” said the 48-year-old.
Asked about his game against young citymate Praggnanandha, who incidentally was not even born when the Anand won the first of his five classical World Championships titles.
“He completely outplayed me in the opening and my only option was to sacrifice an exchange,” said Anand. The maestro from Chennai managed to get the exchange sacrifice and with his opponent making some mistakes launched a strong attack to win the game.