India’s young Grandmaster Rameshbabu Pragyanand has done wonders. He has reached the Chessable Masters final, defeating the big chess giant, the dutch player. Now he will face World No. 2 Ding Liren of China. Pragyananand has become the first Indian to reach the finals of the Chessable Masters.
Pragyanand, who won the Grandmaster title at the age of just 12, defeated his higher-raked Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri 3.5-2.5 in the tie-breaker in the semi-finals. Earlier, the four-game match was tied at 2-2. He made everyone stuns by defeating the higher-ranked player and reaching to finals where any other Indians even to qualified for the top-8.
Earlier Defeated World Champion Carlsen
Pragyananand defeated world champion, Magnus Carlsen, in the 5th round of this competition. This was the second time he had defeated the world champion. 90 days before that, in the month of February, he defeated Carlsen for the first time at the Air Things Masters. Experts are estimating a very bright future for Indian Chess in upcoming years in the professional level.
Other Indians could not even reach the top-8
Apart from Pragyanand, two more Indian players took part in this competition. P Harikrishna and Gujrathi failed to make it to the first eight in the 16-player competition and failed to make it to the knockout rounds. But the presence of Pragyanand had forgotten the performance of other Indians in the championship.
Became Grandmaster at the age of 12
His journey of achievements at the professional level began just at the age of 12. Pragyanananda achieved the title of Grand Master at the age of 12 years, 10 months, and 13 days. He is the youngest Grand Master of India.
At the same time, in the year 2018, he was the second youngest Grandmaster in the world. Before him, only Ukraine’s Sergei Karjakin became Grandmaster in 1990 at the age of just 12.