AS WORLD champion Magnus Carlsen sat bemused, palms on his face, after realising that he was going to lose the eighth round of the Airthings Masters online rapid chess tournament, a wave of shock spread across the face of his would-be slayer R Praggnanandhaa. Wide-eyed and unable to fathom what had unrolled on the other side of the screen in Oslo, he covered his mouth with his hands in the 2 am silence of his home in the Chennai suburb of Padi.

Praggnanandhaa was so exhausted by this difficult game of wit that he just wanted to get some sleep. “I just want to knock on the bed,” he told the chess federation’s website, eyes dazed. Most likely he won’t sleep at all.

That was his “can’t believe it” moment, and that moment has always been part of his wildest dreams. World number one Norwegian Carlsen, the undisputed emperor of chess, a real goat, the marketing face of the game, has always been his idol. “It’s my biggest dream to beat him,” he told this newspaper shortly after becoming the world’s second-youngest grandmaster four years ago. “He (Carlson) has solutions to even the most complex problems,” he explained.

But this time there was no solution, and Praggnanandhaa’s dream finally came true. Being the third Indian to beat Carlsen after Viswanathan Anand and P. Harikrishna underlines his incredible potential. He overturned it in 39 moves and lit up his victory with the black pawn, a clear obstacle in the game.

He was aggressive from the start, putting Carlsen at a disadvantage, but missed a golden opportunity to kill the game in the middle. But he regained his sanity and bounced back, putting relentless pressure on Carlsen, who collapsed and made a mistake.

Perhaps more importantly, India has found Anand’s potential successor and a model for the country’s upcoming chess boom – the Indian Chess League is due to launch in June with prize money of at least Rs 2 crore.

The revival of Praggnanandhaa has also been a timely boost to the game’s popularity in the country. It was also a timely reminder of his talent.

A near-forgotten figure outside the tight-knit chess world, he narrowly lost in the race against time to become the youngest grandmaster in history, and Sergiy Karjakin kept the record before American prodigy Abhimanyu Mishra claimed his this record. The world often forgets that he was a child, not even a teenager, and expectations are often unrealistic.

But the relative anonymity at the time eased the pressure. “Without unnecessary distractions, he was able to fully focus on his game. He wasn’t obsessed with the record, but he was getting a lot of attention. But after that, he was definitely more relaxed and put in a lot of effort. ,” said his father Ramesh Babu.

Complete News Source : The Indian Express