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Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa stunned World number one Magnus Carlsen as he registered a dominant victory over him in the round 4 clash of the Freestyle Chess tournament in Las Vegas on July 16. In a performance which could be called career-defining, 19-year-old Praggnanandhaa defeated Carlsen in just 39 moves which can be termed as a remarkable achievement against the World Number one chess player.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa maintained a remarkable accuracy of 93.9% while playing with the white pieces, while Carlsen who played with black pieces had an accuracy of 84.9%. The match was lasted for 10 minutes with the 10-second increment. Praggnanandhaa showed a calm composure against the five-time World champion and went on to defeat Carlsen across all three major time formats: Classical, Rapid, and Blitz.
I like Freestyle more than Classical right now: Praggnanandhaa
The Freestyle Chess tournament was also co-founded by Magnus Carlsen to bring innovation in the format of the game. After defeating Carlsen, Praggnanandhaa also stated that he now likes the freestyle format more than the classical one. "I like Freestyle more than Classical right now," the 19-year-old said in a post-game interview.
With this win, Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa finished on the top of ground white with 4.5 points, equalling with Sindarov and Abdusattorov and ahead of tiebreaks. He ended up winning against Carlsen, Keymer, and Assaubayeva, along with So and Sindarov. With this, Praggnanandhaa is among the favourites to win the championship. Along with Praggnanandhaa, another Indian Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi also advanced from the group black, behind Hikaru Nakamura and Hans Niemann
