CHENNAI: There is no stopping R Praggnanandhaa at this chess World Cup. First, he had World No 2 Hikaru Nakamura, then his friend and India teammate Arjun Erigaisi and now Fabiano Caruana. The Chennai boy who turned 18 at the competition played some phenomenal chess to secure a final spot against world No 1 Magnus Carlsen starting on Tuesday.
Like all champions, Praggnanandhaa knew what helped him win against Caruana. He said that his defensive abilities helped him. “I was almost losing in every single game,” he said during an interview with FIDE.
“Losing is maybe a hard word but, in the first two classical games, I was defending throughout. I played some inaccuracies in the opening then I had to suffer. Then in the third game also I lost at some point but with little time it’s never easy. In the fourth game, I was maybe pushing a little bit but okay it was nothing, and in the fifth game, I think the position should be around equal but then somehow things went wrong for him with the C3 D4 coming in,” said Praggnanandhaa.
“I felt black should be totally fine but somehow then in a time scramble I managed to not mess up and convert it quite nicely. This game, I thought, I should win it very comfortably. I had a lot of time as well. I had a very good position but then I started to hesitate. I was trying to be cautious which is never a good idea in such situations. Then I allowed a lot of counterplay. I was never in danger but it could have been smooth at the end,” the Indian Grandmaster added.
On meeting Carlsen in the final, he said, “As I said I just didn’t really expect to come here but I’ll just try to give my best and see.” On qualification for the Candidates, he said, “To qualify, (and to be) among the first people to make it to the candidates, it feels really good. I really wanted to fix that spot. I didn’t want to get into this fourth position and try to wait for Magnus’s decision. But, this feels really good.”