Young Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaan produced a scintillating performance, winning three straight games, including two in a blitz tie-break, to beat world number one Magnus Carlsen 4-2 in the final round of the FTX Crypto Cup here on Monday. However, despite the victory over Carlsen, the 17-year-old could only finish second in the final standings.
Norway won the top prize based on the high score. He finished with the Indian prodigy’s tally of 15 with 16 match points.
Carlsen said after the match, “I’ve been playing poorly all day, but now I’m getting the results I deserve… Losing is never good, but it’s just as good a time!”
Another highly-rated teenager and prodigy Alireza Firoza also finished with 15 points, but had to settle for third place as he had lost the clash against Pragyanandana earlier.
The first two games of the Carlsen-Pragnananda match were drawn, before the world number one finished third.
In a surprising turn of events, the Indian won the fourth game to push the match into a tie-break. They surprised Norway by winning both the games in the tie-break.
Pragyananand has been in scintillating form this year and has beaten the world champion twice earlier in online events.
He also played a key role in the India ‘B’ team that recently claimed a bronze medal at the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai.
“I think it could have done better in the last few days but I think second overall is good,” Pragyanand said after the game against Carlsen.
Pragyananand started his campaign with a win over world number four Firoza and also won over Anish Giri and Levon Aronian.
His coach RB Ramesh tweeted, “Great end to end! @rragchess won the blitz tiebreak against Magnus #FTXCryptoCup! Brilliant defensive skills at crucial times, some good opening preparations, some bad decisions, overall very satisfying, His coach RB Ramesh tweeted.
In other matches of the final round, Firouzza defeated Aronian 2.5-1.5, Kwang Lim Le (China) defeated Hans Niemann, while Poland’s Jan-Krijstof defeated Anish Giri 2.5-0.5.
The eight-player all-player-all tournament was the American finale of the Champions Chess Tour. Each match was played in four rapid games, with blitz tiebreaks in the event of a 2–2 draw.
Final Place: 1. Magnus Carlsen 16 match points, 2. R Pragnananda 15, 3. Alireza Turquoise 15, 4. Liem Le 12, 5. Jan-Krzysztof Duda 11, 6. Levon Aronian 8, 7. Anish Giri, 8. Hans Niemann 0. PTI SS ATK ATK
