Praggnanandhaa stuns Magnus Carlsen and Aronian, holds Giri

Joins Anand, Harikrishna as the only Indians to beat Carlsen in tournament play

This week, R. Praggnanandhaa was widely expected to make a splash in the big league by stunning a few big names in the elite field of Airthings Masters online rapid chess tournament.

As it turned out, this prodigiously talented 16-year-old warmed up for the big moment by shocking World No. 4 Levon Aronian and then pulled off the biggest upset by bringing down World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, that too, with black pieces on Sunday.

In between, Praggnanandhaa also drew with World No. 9 Anish Giri after losing to World No. 7 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

By scoring two wins and a draw against four top-10 players in the world, Praggnanandhaa made the chess world sit up and take note of his abilities in the shorter format of the game. The performance, seen in the background of Praggnanandhaa’s three straight defeats on Saturday, assumes greater significance. It aptly reflects Praggnanandhaa’s temperament and the remarkable toughness of a young mind.

Since a victory brings three points and a draw one, Praggnanandhaa jumped from a solitary one point in the first four rounds to eight from the next four. The Chennai lad improved his position from the overnight 15th to 14th. However, he faces an uphill task to finish among the eight quarterfinalists from the remaining seven rounds in the 16-player field.

Coming back to the moment of the day, when Carlsen resigned after the 39th moves, Praggnanandhaa became the third Indian — Viswanathan Anand and P. Harikrishna being the other two — to emerge triumphant against the irrepressible Norwegian in tournament play.

In fact, after 21 moves, Praggnanandhaa appeared to have a great chance to slam the door on Carlsen but missed out.