Bengaluru: Magnus Carlsen has lost four classical games at the Norway Chess tournament this year. Two of them have come against Indian GM R Praggnanandhaa. It’s a rare brag – beating the five-time world champion and world No 1 twice in classical chess in the same tournament. On Tuesday with the White pieces in Round 8, Carlsen, ended up walking into a forced checkmate from what looked like an objectively drawn position.
As the tournament heads into its final rest day, Praggnanandhaa is third in the standings with 12 points, while Carlsen is one spot above bottom-placed Gukesh, at nine and eight points respectively. American GM Wesley So continues to lead the standings.
Early on, Magnus wasn’t at the board when Praggnanandhaa chose to play the French Defense. On move 5, Praggnanandhaa pulled out a surprise with Nh6, a fairly new idea. Carlsen spent over twenty minutes coming up with a response. He steadily fell behind on the clock and the format of the tournament is built to punish tardy time management. Though Praggnananadhaa was a pawn up in the endgame, the position was objectively drawn. With 20 odd seconds on his clock, Carlsen made a terrible blunder – 48. Kf4 ? ?. It was then a point of no return as Black’s Queen and bishop joined forces to deliver checkmate.
“It’s more important for the tournament that I get this win than thinking that it’s Magnus. Of course, it’s great to do it against Magnus but I think winning any game in this stage of the tournament is good…I don’t think the French was such a surprise…I think Nh6 was the main thing…I just wanted to have a fight. I was quite happy with the outcome of the opening,” Praggnanandhaa said.
“He was defending really well. Anyone else would start making small positional mistakes. Towards the end I thought it was just going to be a draw. It was surprising that it ended in such a way.”
“Our prep worked really well today,” Praggnanandhaa’s second Vaibhav Suri told Chessbase India, “This was an idea we prepared few months ago and workout out well. Pragg had a time advantage from the start and he was pushing as much as he could. Magnus defended fairly well but the format is such that it does have an impact on your nervous system and decision-making. I think that’s what happened towards the end. Magnus would hold this in any other tournament if he had a little bit of time. But yeah the blunder towards the end was fortunate for us. Overall, Pragg played really well, he was pressing from the start, had a small advantage and took some really good practical decisions.”
