At the 2024 Tata Steel Chess competition, 18-year-old chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa defeated World champion Ding Liren to take the top rank among Indian players. Playing since he was five years old, Praggnanandhaa expressed amazement at the result and underlined the importance of beating a world champion. He likened the first time he defeated a world champion in classical chess to having a positive feeling. An important victory for the youthful chess phenomenon Praggnanandhaa versus Liren.
NEW DELHI: After his thrilling victory over World champion Ding Liren at the 2024 Tata Steel Chess tournament, chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa made headlines by taking the top rank among Indian players.
With the black pieces, the 18-year-old overcame the current champion and overtook the illustrious Viswanathan Anand to take the top spot in India.
Surprising himself with the result, Praggnanandhaa said, “I felt I equalised very easily, and then somehow things started to go wrong for him.” I believed it should be holdable even after I gained the pawn.”
“The first time winning against a world champion in classical chess feels good,” said the 5-year-old chess sensation, underscoring the importance of defeating a world champion.
At the age of twelve, Praggnanandhaa became the second-youngest Grandmaster in the world and the youngest in India in 2018. Acknowledged for his extraordinary abilities and accomplishments, he is the fifth-youngest Grandmaster to date.
Surprisingly, his older sister R Vaishali is also a Grandmaster, which makes them the first brother-sister GM team in history.
Grandmaster Anish Giri became the only leader going into the first rest day in the Tata Steel Chess tournament’s Masters division. Giri’s dominating position in the tournament was aided by his cunning manoeuvres and triumph over D Gukesh.