Praggnanandhaa, India’s 18-year-old phenom of the 64 squares, managed to defeat World No 1 Magnus Carlsen for the first time in a classical game late on Wednesday in a round 3 match at the Norway Chess tournament in Carlsen’s country.
What made the day sweeter was that while Praggnanandhaa ended the day at the top of the open standings at Norway Chess, his sister Vaishali ended the third round at the top of the women’s standings after edging past Anna Muzychuk in the Armageddon.
Carlsen threw what he himself termed a ‘risky’ opening at Praggnanandhaa, choosing not to castle at all. He instead tried to surprise the teenager from Chennai. But the ploy backfired. After initially being caught off guard, Praggnanadhaa managed to soon pile on the pressure on the five-time world champion.
“His opening was provocative. I said he wants to fight, because otherwise he could play something solid. I didn’t mind at all. We’ll fight and we’ll see how it goes,” Praggnanandhaa told The Indian Express after the victory.
About the Praggnanandhaa versus Carlsen game, Hikaru Nakamura said in the confessional booth (a novelty that has been around at Norway Chess since 2015): “Magnus has decided to play something very double-edged. I guess you can say, he’s going all in today. He’s either going to win or lose today. Hard to see this end in a draw.”
Later, when his own game had ended, Nakamura remarked to Norway’s TV 2 Sport that Carlsen would only play such risky openings against a youngster, but not against veterans like himself.
“I wish Carlsen would take these chances against me or against Fabi. I have this theory that when Magnus is playing the younger kids specifically he wants to sort of prove a point, he wants to go after them and try to beat them and he takes far more risks than he does against us old folks!”
What was remarkable about the win for Praggnanandhaa was that the 18-year-old was trailing on the clock for most of the match against Carlsen.
Asked if this was one of his best wins, Praggnanandhaa said: “I don’t know, I will have to check. I didn’t think I played really well. I did find some best moves. It’s not my best game for sure.”
How Praggnanandhaa defeated Carlsen
The game itself started with Pragg taking 31 seconds before playing 1.e4, prodding ahead his king’s pawn, which is arguably the most popular opening move with white. Carlsen responded by nonchalantly sliding his pawn to c5. An Open Sicilian then made an appearance.
Speaking later on, Pragg said: “My prep stopped at bishop d3 (his fifth move). Carlsen playing queen c7 (with the fifth move) was a surprise. I couldn’t remember anything after that.”
Carlsen himself made a couple of appearances in the confessional booth during the game. One time, he called Praggnanandhaa’s 10th move — pushing the pawn to h3 — as a “waste of a move”.
“Obviously, a pretty risky opening choice today. I think his move 10.h3, though, was a little bit soft. He thought about it for a long time there. I guess he was calculating f4 and queen c5. I don’t really think that’s worse for black. So that was a little bit of a waste of a move. Apart from that, sometimes h3 can be used for rooks and queens for attacks. I wasn’t overly impressed with that one,” said Carlsen in the confessional booth in the middle of the game.
Pragg was trailing on the clock from very early on. By move 10, Carlsen already had a 20-minute advantage on the clock. Over the next four moves, the Indian teen had just one hour on the clock with 26 more moves to make to beat the first time control.
But on move 13, when Carlsen slid his queen to d7 as a response to the Indian moving his pawn to f5, the eval jumped to indicate an advantage for Pragg. (Pragg admitted that at this stage, he felt it was getting tricky for Carlsen).
After move 15, Carlsen made another quick pit stop at the confessional booth.
“I’m a little bit scared that he’s going to go fe6 and knight d5 now. I’ll take the knight and maybe I’ll castle queenside. But it looks quite scary. I doubt that it’s objectively good for white, although I’m not quite sure. I feel that in other lines I’ll be alright. But knight d5 scares me a bit,” smiled Carlsen before walking out of the confessional booth.
Pragg pointed out that he had allowed his knight to be captured on the 20th move, which he felt was an error.
“I’m feeling good. The game was quite interesting. I got a very good position from the opening. I kind of misplayed it at some point. I allowed bishop e3 (20.Bxe3) and f6 (21.f6). I was told later that I still played that position correctly. Maybe I was better throughout the game,” Pragg told journalists in Stavanger after the win.
