Praggnanandhaa finishes 2nd best in World Chess final but with great future hopes

 

India's Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa has finished 2nd best  against world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the final of the Chess World Cup.  With this defeat, Praggnanandhaa's dream of becoming the world champion was broken. Praggnanandhaa had to face defeat in the first game in the tiebreak.  With this, it had become very difficult for him to return.  Carlsen drew the next game and won the match.  Both the matches between the two players ended in draws in the classical format.  In such a situation, this match reached the tie-breaker and by winning here, Magnus Carlsen achieved the distinction of becoming the world champion.  Fabiano Caruana of America finished third and Nizat Abbasov of Azerbaijan finished fourth.

 Praggnanandhaa lost the first game with the white pieces in a tie-breaker on the third day of the final match.  With this his defeat was almost certain, as it was extremely difficult for him to win the next game against Carlsen with the black pieces.  That is what happened in the end.  Carlsen played very defensively with the white pieces and from the very beginning kept building fortifications and buying time.  The game eventually ended in a draw and Carlsen, who won the first game, won the match.

 The first game of the classical format took place on Tuesday in the World Cup final between Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Magnus Carlsen.  Praggnanandhaa was playing with the white pieces and Carlsen was playing with the black pieces.  Both the players played this match in a very restrained manner.  Carlsen later tried to win the match with the black pieces, but Praggnanandhaa made a brilliant defensive play and was able to save the match.  After 35 moves the two players shook hands and the match ended in a draw.

The second match in classical format was played on Wednesday.  In this match, Carlsen was playing with white pieces and Praggnanandhaa was playing with black pieces.  In this match also both the players looked restrained and it seemed from the beginning that the match would be a draw and it happened in the end.  Both the players played 30 moves in an hour-long match, but the match ended in a draw and in the end both decided to play a draw.  In this match, Carlsen was ahead in terms of time in the beginning, but could not take advantage of it and in the end he himself started falling behind in terms of time.

 After making it to the final, Praggnananda became the third youngest player to qualify for the Candidates tournament after veterans Bobby Fischer and Carlsen.

Defeated but not at all disgraced . Praggnananda only at  18 achieved a humongous task of reaching the World Chess final and then went down to one of the best in  the World after a great contest which had to reach the tie breaker stage . It speaks massive volumes about his ability and gives an idea of what the future holds for this 18 year old prodigy .  The whole country is singing praise of this youngster and it goes without saying that with him in the ranks , India is set to dominate world chess very soon .