Praggnanandhaa, a Grandmaster!

by Sagar Shah
6/23/2018 – In a small town of northern Italy called Ortisei, history is being made. The young uber-prodigy R. Praggnanandhaa is playing the 4th Gredine Open 2018 and he has qualified for his final GM norm making him the second youngest GM in the history of the game. In this article IM Sagar Shah analyzes one of Pragg's fine wins over Aryan Gholami from Iran. His sister Vaishali is also in fantastic form as she is on track to making her maiden IM norm. Also get to see some breathtaking pictures sent to us by Sushir Lohia.
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Second youngest GM ever

The 4th Gredine Open 2018 is currently taking place in Ortisei, Italy. It's a pretty strong event with a rating average of 2198. There are 81 players from 21 countries and 42 of them are titled. The tournament is, therefore, an excellent destination for norm seekers. That's precisely the reason why R. Praggnanandhaa is playing the tournament! He required his final GM norm to become the second youngest GM in the history of the game. And after completing eight rounds he seems to have done it!

Ortisei is a town of 4,637 inhabitants in South Tyrol in northern Italy. It occupies the Val Gardena within the Dolomites, a mountain chain that is part of the Alps.

Playing hall

The playing hall of the tournament (click or tap to enlarge) | Photo: Official website

Praggnanandhaa started off as the sixth seed at the tournament with a rating of 2529. He needs just one more GM-performance to qualify for the title.

Although all the players that he has beaten have been below his rating, I think his win against Aryan Gholami deserves special mention. Aryan is a talented youngster from Iran. He has a rating of 2490. To win a game against such a talented opponent is never an easy task. And Pragg made all the best moves, showing some flawless bit of chess!

 

Praggnanandhaa and Gholami

Aryan Gholami is having a tough time with the Rameshbabu family as in the seventh round he lost to Vaishali as well! | Photos: Official website

In the eighth round, Pragg won another nice game against Italian GM Luca Moroni Jr. He got an advantage right out of the opening and played powerful attacking chess to convert the point, after Moroni went wrong in the middlegame.

 

Black's king is stuck in the centre and he has just given a harmless check on b6 but now must drop his bishop back to f6 and try to defend. Instead, a bid for counterplay merely hastened the end.

16...dxe4?! 17.Nxe4 Rd3 18.Qa3! From here the queen is menacing the black king from afar. 18...Bd4 19.Bg5  and White is winning.

Here's the game in full including the moment when Moroni resigned:

Pragg's chance for a GM norm

Depending what his rating average is Pragg required either 6½/9 or 7.0/9. Here's the relevant extract from the FIDE Handbook:

FIDE handbook

Taking his 8th round opponent into consideration and also pushing the rating of his first-round opponent to 2200, Pragg's average comes to 2428. His win over Moroni means that so long as he meets an opponent whose rating is above 2485 in the ninth round, he achieves his norm with one round to spare!

If he gets an opponent in the last round whose rating is below 2485, then he would have to score a draw in the last round to make it.

Update: He's paired with Dutch GM Roeland Pruijssers (2514), so that should be enough regardless of the outcome of the final round. Pragg will be a GM!

Pragg had already achieved his first GM norm in the World Juniors 2017, and he achieved his second GM norm at a closed round-robin tournament in Greece. He has also crossed 2500 Elo. So, again, all that is required for him to become a GM is this final GM norm! I think he should be able to achieve it, considering the form that he is in right now. [He did!]

Youngest grandmasters in chess history

As Pragg was born on August 10th, 2005, if he achieves his third GM norm on June 24th, 2018, he would become a grandmaster at the age of 12 years, 10 months and 14 days. That would make him the second youngest GM in the history of the game and the only other player after Sergey Karjakin to achieve the GM title before the age of 13 years!

No. Player Country Age Birth year  
1. Sergey Karjakin Ukraine 12 years, 7 months, 0 days 1990
2. Nodirbek Abdusattorov Uzbekistan 13 years, 1 month, 11 days 2004
3. Parimarjan Negi India 13 years, 4 months, 22 days 1993
4. Magnus Carlsen Norway 13 years, 4 months, 27 days 1990
5. Wei Yi China 13 years, 8 months, 23 days 1999
6. Bu Xiangzhi China 13 years, 10 months, 13 days 1985
7. Samuel Sevian United States 13 years, 10 months, 27 days 2000
8. Richárd Rapport Hungary 13 years, 11 months, 6 days 1996
9. Teimour Radjabov Azerbaijan 14 years, 0 months, 14 days 1987
10. Ruslan Ponomariov Ukraine 14 years, 0 months, 17 days 1983

Click or tap a name to open the ChessBase Playerbase

All available games

 

Standings after eight rounds

Rk. Name Pts.  TB1 
1 Saric Ivan 6,5 36,5
2 Praggnanandhaa R 6,5 36,5
3 Sonis Francesco 6,0 32,5
4 Santos Latasa Jaime 5,5 38,0
5 Moroni Luca Jr 5,5 33,5
6 Kindermann Stefan 5,5 33,5
7 Hecht Hans-Joachim 5,5 33,0
8 Pruijssers Roeland 5,0 36,0
9 Tarlev Konstantin 5,0 35,5
10 Vocaturo Daniele 5,0 35,0

Links

Sagar is an International Master from India with two GM norms. He loves to cover chess tournaments, as that helps him understand and improve at the game he loves so much. He is the co-founder and CEO of ChessBase India, the biggest chess news portal in the country. His YouTube channel has over a million subscribers, and to date close to a billion views. ChessBase India is the sole distributor of ChessBase products in India and seven adjoining countries, where the software is available at a 60% discount. compared to International prices.

Discuss

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satman satman 6/26/2018 01:50
Without taking anything away from this boy's achievement, it seems to me that the GM title has been watered down over the years, while the method of acquiring it, through a series of 'norms' is quite outdated, going back to the days before the Elo rating system.
Today we not only have the Elo system, we have the international rating list published at regular intervals and we have the live ratings.
I suggest we can use these to greatly simplify the awarding of titles.
Specifically a player would receive the GM title if at any time his live rating hit that of the one at the 100th position in the latest international rating list (currently 2652).
He wouldn't need to maintain that grade, just having hit it once would be enough.
This would ensure that the player really had performed at a high level - a grandmaster level.
Also rating inflation would be accounted for, as of course the rating of the 100th position is higher in each new list.
100th too high? You could make it 200th.
Whatever level, it would make for a simpler and better system then the current one.
turok turok 6/26/2018 01:37
really when did Fischer FADE??? He won the world championship-if he did nothing else in his life he accomplished just about everything in Chess. When did he give it up in his life-we know never. Chess was his life. His mental illness caused his issues. He did not fade he excelled and was the top of the world and even to this day is considered by most as the best ever.
fgkdjlkag fgkdjlkag 6/25/2018 06:46
@Marselos, titles in karate are not given based on experience, one may only take a test when deemed ready by the sensei, and one must demonstrate proficiency in kata.
Chand_uma Chand_uma 6/25/2018 12:01
Congratulations Praggu we are all proud of you
EMeyer EMeyer 6/24/2018 10:32
Amazing! Congrats! India must be proud!
fons3 fons3 6/24/2018 12:59
Define "genius".
Kenster Kenster 6/24/2018 11:52
Nice one! Congratulations Prag!
amarpan amarpan 6/24/2018 07:49
@fgkdjlkag I agree with you. In fact his rematch with Spassky clearly indicated that he remained a genius after all those years.
fgkdjlkag fgkdjlkag 6/24/2018 06:56
There is nothing to suggest that Fischer's genius faded away.
Marselos Marselos 6/24/2018 06:46
Once time only a genius became GM when he was a boy, he did not need experience.
Today a 3 ,4, years normal child is in front of the computer, becomes a GM at 12. 13. 14 years .
I say :it is nothing special, it is certainly annoying.
World change, informations change, let's change.
Marselos Marselos 6/24/2018 06:35
There is something deeply wrong.
We change the categories.
We leave the elo and we give the titles, by experience, as in Karate.
no GM with pacifier.
amarpan amarpan 6/24/2018 06:05
@shahram I am aware that Negi went to Stanford and is now in MIT. He has also authored books on chess over the years. That still does not change the fact that he faded away from the chess scene. It is not unusual for young achievers, in any field not just chess, to realize this is not what they want to do for the rest of their lives and they take up something else. This happened to Kamsky as well who gave up chess, went on to study law and later made a successful come back into the chess scene. And yes, sometimes "Genius" does fade away, if your aware of the life of Bobby Fischer ......
ulyssesganesh ulyssesganesh 6/24/2018 05:47
best wishes for praggananda....
VVI VVI 6/24/2018 12:27
Finally, he makes it. Congratulations! Now on to next milestone.
shahram48 shahram48 6/23/2018 11:52
@amarpan Negi made a conscious choice of not pursuing professional chess for rest of his life, I remember there was an article about it on ChessBase at the time. He got a degree from Stanford and right now is a Ph.D. student at computer science at MIT. Genius doesn't in general fade away, it's just that different people have different priorities in their life, and clearly dedicating his whole life to chess and openings and end games and etc... was not Negi's top priority.
amarpan amarpan 6/23/2018 09:45
Parimarjan Negi, third this list simply faded away after some time. On the other hand, Anish Giri, Weseley So and Fabiano Caruana all around the same age as Negi are playing at the highest level and are not in this list of youngest GMs. Time will tell how far Praggnanandhaa will go.
KevinC KevinC 6/23/2018 07:59
He won in the 8th round and is now tied for 1st in the tournament.
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