Praggnanandhaa – yet another Indian super-talent

Reykjavik Open 2017: The (pre-teen) Indians are coming

Recently Frederic Friedel told you about an extraordinary lad, Nihal Sarin, who visited the ChessBase office in Hamburg. The lad is just twelve years old but blessed with GM strength (and a keen sense of humour). Nihal already has a full IM title, and after his visit he went to Norway, where he completed his first GM norm, crushing a 2600+ GM in the process. Extraordinary talent, unique in the world of chess today.

Or is it? Nihal (that's him on the left) has a colleague, on the right, who is almost a full year younger. You are going to have to learn to pronounce the name: Prag-nah-nan-da – not so difficult, really. And if you cannot manage, go for Pragga, which is what his family and friends call him. The full name is Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, which is bound to be the bane of every cross table.

Pragga is all of eleven years old and last year, at the age of ten years, ten months and 19 days, became the youngest International Master in history. Like Nihal he is on the path to grandmasterdom, although he still has to make his first GM norm. After eight rounds of the Reykjavik Open he is just half a point behind the leading group, with 6.5/8 and a 2539 performance. It is only a matter of time.

On a recent trip to India Frederic was interviewed by the media giant First Post, and to the delight of his host said: "India is the rising superpower of chess. My prediction is that in five years, or at the very latest in ten years, of the top players, 30-40 percent will be Indian, and of the top ten, four will be Indian grandmasters." He repeated this in other inverviews, and when people were skeptical about the four-of-the-top-ten pediction he told them that he could name two already (hint: check the picture above).

Regarding the general prediction let us take a look at the current standings in the Reyjkavik Open, after eight rounds:

Click for complete standings

The tournament is being led by a Dutch grandmaster named Anish Giri. Indian name: Anish' father is from Nepal. But that doesn't count. Abhijeet Gupta, Vidit Gujrathi and Kunte Abhijit are Indian in heritage and on their passports. And of course Nihal and Pragga are on the table, half a point and one point behind the leaders. ChessBase has reported extensively on the former, so now I would like to show you what the latter is up to. I take the following from ChessBase India, where I today published a report entitle "Praggnanandhaa in Reyk - the boy is turning into a man!"

Sometimes, when an eleven-year-old boy sits on his knees on a chair, rests his elbow on the table and stretches to reach his piece, it becomes difficult to take him seriously. You know he is the youngest IM in the world, but you feel that as a player he cannot be fully developed. How much can a boy who has been playing chess for just five years really know? Well, Pragga's two games at the Reykjavik Open put the question of how strong he is to rest. The answer is: "He is really, really strong!"

In round seven Praggnanandhaa was up against the legendary Alexander Beliavsky

Beliavsky is the former World Junior Champion, four-time USSR Champion and Candidates Quarter Finalist, losing only to the great Garry Kasparov. With years of experience behind him, he took on the little boy from Chennai. Praggnanandhaa played like a champion! He had Beliavsky on the ropes and was very close to winning the game. In the end, the old master had to use all his tricks in the book to wriggle out with the half point.

Praggnanandhaa in his game against Beliavsky, watched by his sister Vaishali (see below)

Once you go through the game you realize that Pragga had all reason to be upset with the draw. His opening play was really good, and kept the advantage deep into the middlegame. After this small mishap (if we may call it that) the boy was really motivated to move on.

GM Gawain Jones was Praggnanandhaa's next opponent. A word about Gawain's form: he started off 2017 by winning the prestigious Wijk Aan Zee B category, which gives him a direct entry into next year's A Group. He then won the super strong Dubai Open as well. With 2671, he is very close to the highest rating of his chess career.

In the eighth round he was paired against Praggnanandhaa. Gawain spurned the three fold repetition twice in the game. He had the initiative and he wanted to win at all costs. But Pragge defended well – some of his moves towards the end are worthy of being added to any defensive manual. I have inserted them as quiz questions – let's see if you can find the moves that Praggnanandhaa played under pressure.

Praggnanandhaa has his own Facebook page, which is run by ChessBase India:

Take another look at the table given above – there we find the name R. Vaishali. This is a 15-year-old WIM from India, winner of the Girls' World Youth Chess Championship for Under-14 and Under-12. She is also the sister of Praggnanandhaa.

We mustn't forget how little Pragga began playing chess: it was only by watching his elder sister. Vaishali would work on the game and go to her chess training centre, and the little boy started following her.

Vaishali, as I have always believed, is a special talent. She is fearless and a thoroughly practical player. It is for this reason she can inflict defeats on any opposition of any level. Recently she had been busy studying for her tenth standard examination, which is so very important in India. But as is often the case, she is in great form after having the burden of studying off her mind.

In the fifth round Vaishali was up against Eugene Torre, the first grandmaster from Asia. Eugene was a good friend of Bobby Fischer and a man of tremendous experience. Here's how their game went:

This victory wasn't enough to satiate Vaishali's hunger of beating grandmasters. In the sixth round she scored a fine win with the white pieces against GM Eugene Perelshteyn. And have a look at the game, it was a completely off beat opening where Vaishali managed to outplay her opponent on sheer middlegame strength.

GM killer! After six rounds Vaishali was on 5.0/6 and gaining 38 rating points. In the next two rounds she lost to GMs Erwin l'Ami (2614) and Abhijit Kunte (2491). Currently she is gaining only 31.6 rating points.

Before I finish I must mention another (non-Indian) elderly IM:

Liang Awonder from the US, just turned 14 and with 6.0/8 is well on track for a GM norm

And here a bunch of Islandic IMs with norm ambitions – no, wait, they are just spectators

The wonderful pictures in this report were provided by Lennart Ootes

Links

• Official tournament site
• All games in PGN or Replay them directly here (many analyzed)

You can use ChessBase 14 or any of our Fritz compatible chess programs to replay the games in PGN. You can also download our free Playchess client, which will in addition give you immediate access to the chess server Playchess.com.