Amazing everyone and making India proud, R Praggnanandhaa becomes the 2nd youngest ‘grandmaster’ of chess in the world!

Chennai, June 26: Like a boss! India has always asserted to the title of ‘champions’ by winning the match like a pro! On a similar note, India has added another feather to the winning cap. Child prodigy R. Praggnanandhaa became the youngest grand chess master of the world.

At the age of 12, Praggnanandhaa reins the title of being the second grandmaster in chess. Sitting on the chair with confidence and calm demeanor, the 12-year-old boy knew the game was in his bag. For 12-year-old Praggnanandhaa winning or losing a game of chess has never really affected his mood after the match.

The Sports Ministry has awarded the child prodigy with 4 lac incentive as an award by the government. In addition to that, another 10 lakhs will be spared from the National Sports Development Fund for his training in this year.

At least externally, he has never shown any huge emotions. But this one was huge! Very huge! The boy from Chennai had scored his final GM norm. This meant that he had just become the second youngest grandmaster in the history of chess. The youngest one was Russian Sergey Karjakin who achieved it at the age of 12 years 7 months in 2002.

 

Praggnanandhaa was extremely close to beating the record, but in the end, he achieved it when he was 12 years, 10 months and 13 days. Apart from Karjakin and Praggnanandhaa, no one in the history of chess has ever achieved the coveted GM title before the age of 13 years.

The interesting game saw the Chennai lad play some powerful attacking chess and he did not let go of the advantage he got at the beginning of the game. Feeling the pressure midway, Moroni resigned giving the game to Praggnanandhaa.

Praggnanandhaa has bagged some great wins in this tournament. He beat Iranian players Aryan Gholami and the Italian GM. This, however, was not enough to crown Praggnanandhaa a grandmaster. The boy had to face an opponent above the 2482 Elo ranking. He drew with Pruijssers Roeland from the Netherlands whose rating was 2514. The current Croatian GM Saric Ivan leads the race and Praggnanandhaa comes right after him, in the second spot.

The Chennai boy won the GM title in World Juniors 2017 and his second GM norm at a closed round-robin tournament in Greece. He has also crossed 2500 Elo rating points, the system used to calculate chess ratings.