R Praggnanandhaa’s title at the UzChess Cup Masters, saw the 19-year-old become the new India No. 1 in the live classical chess rankings. He defeated Uzbek GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov, with Black pieces in the final round to seal the title.
In the live ratings, Praggnanandhaa is fourth now, with an Elo rating of 2778.3. D Gukesh is fifth with a rating of 1776.6, and Arjun Erigaisi (2775.7) is sixth. Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (2839.2) occupies top spot, followed by American GMs Hikaru Nakamura (2807) and Fabiano Caruana (2784.2).
Viswanathan Anand (2743.0) is not in the top-ten, and occupies 13th position in the live rankings, and is India No. 4. Meanwhile, Aravindh Chithambaram (2724.0) is 24th in the live rankings and is India No. 5.
Taking to X, Anand hailed the new India No. 1 and wrote, “Of all his wins this year, this one seemed the least likely with just two rounds to go. However, he defeated Arjun Erigaisi (yesterday) and today in the crucial match defeated Nodirbek Abdussattorov to tie for first place.”
“In an impressive demonstration of character he won his third tiebreak of the year as well. He is deservedly the new number four in the chess world and the highest rated player in India,” he added.
Meanwhile, his longtime coach RB Ramesh told The Indian Express, “Pragg is quite good in attack, but he was playing too solid in 2024. At least that was my impression. We discussed this and talked about being more adventurous, which you can see now.”
“His chess was always quite good. Now he’s also been adding new openings and trying a lot more variety of openings in games.”
Ramesh also revealed that Vaibhav Suri working as Praggnanandhaa’s second has been beneficial. He said, “Vaibhav has been helping us longer than this year. But we did not want to go public earlier (and reveal his association with Pragg). He has been with us for some time, but only recently he has started accompanying Pragg for tournaments and that has been very helpful.”
“It’s good to have someone you know well, who believes in you, travel with you during important tournaments. When you are going through difficult times, it will be easier to believe in ourselves.”
