Praggnanandhaa declared joint-winner at London Classic

CHENNAI: The last few days have been an eventful one for Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa. The 14-year-old, who became the second youngest in the world to cross the 2600 ELO rating on Thursday, was crowned the joint-winner of the London Classic with 7.5 points from 9 rounds. Praggu shared the spoils with Australian GM Anton Smirnov. Praggu drew his final round with Sahaj Grover late on Friday in the final round of the competition.Praggu’s city-mate Aravindh Chithambaram finished third with 7 points. Praggu's sister R Vaishali ended with 6.5 points.
This is Praggu's third tournament victory in 2019. He had won the Xtracon Open in Denmark in July. He followed that by clinching the World Youth championships in Mumbai in October. "Each tournament win is special. In this competition, I crossed the 2600 rating and that gave me a lot of self-belief," Praggu told TOI. For the youngster, playing without fear has reaped rich dividends. "If you look at my games at the London Classic, I have looked to be bolder. Playing fearlessly and being more creative was important," Praggu added.
Praggu singled out his penultimate round clash against Aravindh as a memorable one in this event. "We both regularly play each other during our training sessions and know each other's games well. It was a match that went down to the wire before we decided to split points," said Praggu.
After finishing 9th in the World Juniors in New Delhi in October, Praggu took a break for a few weeks before arriving in London. "I didn't dwell too much on what went wrong at the World Juniors. It was a tough competition for me but nevertheless -- a great learning experience," said Praggu.
His long-time coach RB Ramesh revealed that Praggu has worked religiously on his positional understanding. "It (positional understanding) has been an important aspect of his preparations. Also, in the last two tournaments, he has become more aggressive," Ramesh said. Praggu's aggressive intent may have got him the desired result at the World Juniors, but in London -- he was in good form.
The performance in London got him 15 ELO points and his rating is currently 2601. Praggu will have a chance to add more rating points when he takes part at the Sunway Sitges Open which starts in Barcelona from December 13.