Chennai’s R Praggnanandhaa becomes second youngest Grandmaster: R Praggnanandhaa, an young boy from Chennai created history on Saturday after he became the second youngest Grandmaster in the world at 12 years, 10 months and 13 days.
From Ukraine, Sergey Karjakin, had become the youngest Grandmaster at 12 years, seven months back in 1990.
Gredine Open in Ortisei, Italy Praggnanandhaa has been played a superb and flawless chess where He has accounted for some fine wins under his belt, which include, defeating Iran youngster Aryan Gholami.
Praggnandhaa beat Italian GM Luca Moroni Jr in the eighth round, On Saturday. though, it was not enough for the youngster to earn his third GM norm.
In the ninth round, Praggnanandhaa had to play an opponent above the rating of 2482 and then he achieves this norm. Providentially he was drawn with Pruijssers Roeland of the Netherlands, whose rating was 2514.
Praggnanandhaa now becomes the second chess player to become a GM on this very tender age.
In the game against Moroni, Praggnanandhaa received an advantage right out at the opening match. He didn’t let the advantage slip away in order to play a powerful attacking chess in order to convert the point.
Now Moroni buckled under the pressure in the middlegame, which was the crucial and main match to Praggnanandhaa.
At present Croatian GM Saric Ivan leads the points table post the eighth round while Praggnanandhaa sits at the second spot also.
Praggnanandhaa had already achieved his first GM norm in the World Juniors 2017, where he achieved his second GM norm at a closed round-robin tournament in Greece. He had also crossed 2500 Elo rating points.
