Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday congratulated R Praggnanandhaa after the 16-year-old Indian Grandmaster defeated world champion, Magnus Carlsen, in the eighth round of the Airthings Masters.
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The chess sensation became only the third Indian after Viswanathan Anand and P Harikrishna to beat Carlsen and Modi extended wishes to the Praggnanandhaa and wished him luck for the future.
Modi took to Twitter to share, "We are all rejoicing on the success of the young genius R Praggnanandhaa. Proud of his accomplishment of winning against the noted champion Magnus Carlsen. I wish the talented Praggnanandhaa the very best for his future endeavours. @rpragchess"
Carlsen had racked up three wins in a row before faltering against Praggnanandhaa, who won with black pieces in 39 moves in a Tarrasch variation game. Praggnanandhaa's win against Carlsen was the Indian's first win in any form of chess against the Norwegian.
{{/usCountry}}Carlsen had racked up three wins in a row before faltering against Praggnanandhaa, who won with black pieces in 39 moves in a Tarrasch variation game. Praggnanandhaa's win against Carlsen was the Indian's first win in any form of chess against the Norwegian.
{{/usCountry}}Before defeating Carlsen, the 16-year-old Praggnanandhaa had registered a solitary win versus Levon Aronian along with recording two draws and four defeats. He drew against Anish Giri and Quang Liem Le and lost to Eric Hansen, Ding Liren, Jan-Kryzstof Duda and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
Praggnanandhaa, however, finished at the 11th spot in the standings and hence he failed to make the cut. Only eight qualified for the knockouts from the round-robin stage. He started the final day of the preliminary rounds with a draw against German Vincent Keymer in round 13 before losing to USA's Hans Mokko Niemann in the next one.
He finished 11th in the standings with 19 points, missing the knockout phase which only features the top eight. In the 16-player Airthings Masters, a player received three points for a win and one for a draw in the preliminary rounds.