Bengaluru: In a year in which Gukesh became world champion and Arjun Erigaisi made an astounding climb up the world rankings, one Indian name that wasn’t heard as much was Praggnanandhaa. He defeated Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana at Norway Chess in the first half of the year, but as the months passed, his compatriots outshone him with extraordinary performances.
On Sunday, in a Dutch village on the North Sea coast, Praggnanandhaa flicked away a quiet year with a hell-raising performance.
He defeated reigning world champion and fellow Indian Gukesh in a dramatic tiebreak to become only the second player from India, after Viswanathan Anand, to win the Tata Steel Masters title in Wijk Aan Zee. The tournament, steeped in tradition, dates back to 1938, with Mikhail Tal, Mikhail Botvinnik, Garry Kasparov, and Magnus Carlsen among its past winners. Praggnanandhaa will now join these greats on the hallowed Wijk Aan Zee Wall of Fame — a wall he would gaze at on every trip to the tournament.
“When I came here, I wanted to win the event, but the field was very strong,” the 19-year-old said after close to eight hours of play on Sunday. He has Arjun to thank for taking down Gukesh, his co-leader, in Round 13. “I should buy Arjun something.” Praggnananandhaa laughed.
With this win, Praggnanandhaa has moved to world No 7 and taken second spot in the Fide Circuit leaderboard with 25 points. Former world champion Ding Liren leads the standings with 40.64 points. At the end of the year, whoever tops the circuit leaderboard will find a place in the eight-player 2026 Candidates that will determine who plays Gukesh at the next World Championship.
Praggnanandhaa spent most of last year shuttling to tournaments and keeping up with a packed playing calendar. It’s something he is likely to steer clear of, this year. “That was one of the problems last year,” says his mentor RB Ramesh. “He was not getting enough time between tournaments to address any issues. There was no way to course correct. We decided that it was time to cut down on tournaments this year. We managed to spend the last couple of months doing some work. That may have helped in Wijk Aan Zee.”
There was also some spade work put in to bring about a switch in his mentality. “After his results last year, I felt that he needed to be more aggressive and ambitious mentally, not be content with not losing and to try to play for a win against everyone with both colours. It seemed like he had become probably a bit too professional in his games, where he was going purely by merits. When that happens, you lose some of your creativity and risk-taking ability. A switch could only happen if his mind was aligned with approach. We had a chat about it and it seems to be working. He is trying to win games now and you can see automatically the number of draws has dropped.”
The teen’s ambition and hunger for wins was also evident in the manner in which he managed to recover quickly after losses in Wijk Aan Zee. After his Round 9 defeat to Anish Giri, Praggnanandhaa reeled off three successive wins – against Vladimir Fedoseev, Caruana and Alexey Sarana. Heading into the final round, he was tied for the lead alongside Gukesh.
On Sunday, at the end of a fortnight-long tournament, battling fatigue and nerves, the moment of truth arrived. Arjun demolished Gukesh and handed Praggnanandhaa a chance to win the tournament outright. All he needed was a draw against Germany’s Vincent Keymer.
Pressure can be a funny thing. He ended up losing after seven hours of play and it was back to a battle between him and Gukesh. The world champion who had lost early in the evening, had some time to rest and spent his time before the blitz playoffs playing 3-minute puzzle rush. Pragnananandhaa who barely had time to catch his breath, spent his time before the deciding tiebreak, with his mother Nagalakshmi and sister Vaishali.
He started off by blundering and losing the first blitz game and for the second time in what was an inordinately long day for him, he had to summon the reserves and the will to mount a comeback. He won the next two games and the biggest tournament of his career and left the playing hall, giddy with exhaustion and joy.
“We wanted to take a shot at qualifying for the World Championship last year but things didn’t go our way,” says Ramesh. “It was kind of disappointing. This year it’s our goal for him to qualify for the Candidates so that he can try to get into the World Championship next year. This is a good start.”
