Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa finished second in FIDE World Cup. After three days and four games of intensely nervy chess across two formats, Magnus Carlsen finally managed to win the FIDE World Cup for the first time in his career. Carlsen defeated Praggnanandhaa in the final, but not before the 18-year-old teenage had dragged him through the tie-breaker. Carlsen’s win was confirmed after the second game of the tiebreaker. The two players had played out one draw each.
Praggnanandha, who turned 18 during the World Cup, was the youngest World Cup finalist ever, and is the youngest World Cup winner. Seeded 31, Pragg is also the lowest seed to make the final of the World Cup. Praggnanandhaa became a GM at the age of 12. He was going strong before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which brought the world to a standstill. But the Chennai teenager made the most of it, homing his skills in online tournaments.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (born 10 August 2005) is an Indian chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he became an international master at the age of 10, the youngest at the time to do so, and a grandmaster at the age of 12, the second-youngest at the time to do so. On 22 February 2022, at the age of 16, he became the youngest player to defeat then-world champion Magnus Carlsen, when he beat Carlsen in a rapid game at the Airthings Masters Rapid Chess Tournament (a record since broken by Gukesh D, on 16 October 2022).
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