3 min readUpdated: Mar 29, 2026 04:16 PM IST
GM Anish Giri is scheduled to take on GM R Praggnanandhaa in his opening round of the Candidates tournament at Cyprus. And thoughts on opening day eve clearly revolved around the Indian for the Dutchman.
Giri, talking to Chessbase revealed a hilarious message he received that sent his creative wordsmith mind into a tizzy.
“Unless earth is going…like earthquake is happening….other than that I’m not checking my phone. But suddenly there was a message and I thought it must be earth shattering. I opened phone, and they said ‘would you do pro chess training on 28th?” Giri told ChessBase.
Pro Chess Training is an online chess coaching platform which has both Giri and Pragg’s coach GM RB Ramesh on their list of coaches. Whats more, the speaker on March 28 casually tossed in that even Pragg might join. The Candidates were to start on March 29, with the two to play Round 1. Giri was staggered.
“They said it’ll be very well attended. Maybe Pragg will join. I know Pragg always watches afterwards. So I thought, what, Pragg wants some last minute training or what? I wanted to tell them, ‘But it’s scheduled for 29th. Let’s not do two for price of one?” he narrated to ChessBase.
Giri thought of answers like ‘Go to hell’ because he was raging. “I had thousands of options of responses running through my mind. Finally I tweeted and it ended up being funny. I think it escaped their mind that Candidates is on at the moment,” he said.
Joking later in the interview that he would FIDE to consider school exam schedules in South Holland before deciding on World Championship dates if he qualified, Giri would also talk about why Candidates hid their seconds.
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Knowledge about opponent gave them cues, Giri said. Like, knowing if Pragg has shaved his stubble.
“It’s just nice I think to not reveal because then the unknown is always (more challenging). I always feel also when I find out something about my opponent I feel always a bit … Let’s say, I see some kind of picture of Pragg and I see who he’s with. I see you know he didn’t shave or something. It just gives me a comfortable feeling,” Giri explained.
“Like okay, now I know Pragg is here with this guy and didn’t shave. I still don’t know anything but it gives me a little more comfort,” he would add.
Giri said it sounded funny now, but small observations could end up important in hindsight. “And these are tiny things but this could be deciding factor. You know afterwards they’d be like ‘Well how did you win?’ and I’ll say, ‘Yea you know I saw Pragg didn’t shave.,”‘ he joked
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