Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is not new to beating Magnus Carlsen but this one felt different.
At the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam in Las Vegas, the 19-year-old Indian Grandmaster outplayed the world number one in just 39 moves during their Round 4 clash, leading Group White and moving into the quarter-finals.
Playing with the white pieces, Praggnanandhaa controlled the game throughout, registering an accuracy of 93.9 per cent against Carlsen’s 84.9 per cent. The 10+10 rapid game showed no signs of hesitation from the teenager, who has now beaten Carlsen in all three time formats: Classical, Rapid, and Blitz.
“I like Freestyle more than Classical right now,” Praggnanandhaa said in a post-game interview.
The Las Vegas leg is part of a tour co-founded by Carlsen himself, built around the Chess960 format. That the Norwegian lost on a format he helped popularise made the result harder to ignore.
Carlsen began well in the group stage with wins over Vincent Keymer and Levon Aronian but stalled midway. He drew Round 3 against Javokhir Sindarov before losing to Praggnanandhaa in Round 4. A second loss followed against American GM Wesley So in Round 5. Though he managed a win over Bibisara Assaubayeva in Round 7, it wasn’t enough. Carlsen finished fifth in Group White with four points, and his campaign ended in the play-off stage after back-to-back losses to Aronian.
Praggnanandhaa topped Group White with 4.5 points from seven rounds, wins over Carlsen, Keymer and Assaubayeva, and draws against So and Sindarov helped him advance on tie-breaks. His group also included Abdusattorov, who finished level on points, and Sindarov.
The Las Vegas leg comes as a turnaround for the Chennai-based player, who had finished ninth in the previous leg in Paris. This win strengthens his position in the overall Grand Slam standings, which Carlsen still leads due to earlier victories in Karlsruhe and Paris.
From Group Black, Arjun Erigaisi also qualified for the championship bracket after finishing third behind Hikaru Nakamura and Hans Niemann.
