R Praggnanandhaa forces Magnus Carlsen to resign: How Indian Grandmaster outwitted world No.1 in 39 moves

The fourth leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is currently underway in Las Vegas, and it has been quite the dramatic leg so far. ‘Sin City’, after all, bore witness to world No 1 Magnus Carlsen, the tour’s co-founder who had won the Paris and Karlsruhe legs with ease, fail to qualify for the quarter-finals after finishing fifth in his eight-player group.

The Norwegian Grandmaster started his Las Vegas campaign with victories over Vincent Keymer and Levon Aronian before being held to a draw by Javokhir Sindarov. However, it was back-to-back defeats against India's R Praggnanandhaa and American GM Wesley So that derailed his campaign.

Despite defeating Bibisara Assaubayeva in his final group game after a draw against Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Carlsen finished tied on four points with Aronian for the fourth spot, leading to a playoff between the two for the quarter-finals which the Armenian-born American GM ended up winning 2-0.

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How Praggnanandhaa defeated Carlsen

The defeat against ‘Pragg’ was the third time Carlsen lost to an Indian this year, after his losses against reigning Classical world champion D Gukesh at Norway Chess as well as SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz Croatia. And looking back at his campaign, it was his defeat against 19-year-old Praggnanandhaa after a strong start that began his slide.

What stood out in Praggnanandhaa’s victory over Carlsen was the manner in which he defeated the world’s top-ranked player across formats, who is also considered among the greatest to have ever played the sport. Carlsen resigned in just 39 moves in the 10+10 game, that too when he had 49 seconds left on the clock compared to just 21 for his opponent.

The game began with both players advancing their knights, with Praggnanandhaa playing as white. And it was Carlsen’s decision to capture his opponent’s knight with his pawn (11. cxd4) in his 11th move that was flagged as questionable by the Stockfish engines used by Chess.com and Lichess, with the latter recommending Qd7 as the ideal move for the scenario.

The move shot up the eval bar in Praggnanandhaa’s favour, and the Indian further solidified his position after a blunder by Carlsen three moves later (Rxd8), in which the 34-year-old responded to a check (Nxd6+) from his opponent’s knight by capturing it with his rook. At this point, the eval bar had shot up to 3.2 in Praggnanandhaa’s favour on Chess.com.

There were a couple of inaccurate moves on Pragg’s part as well, from his decision to initiate a Queen exchange in the 17th move (17. Qxb5 Qxb5) to moving his bishop by a square (21. Bc2). Carlsen, however, once again fortified his opponent’s position with yet another blunder – this time advancing his light-squared bishop to the other side of the board for a check (22. Ba2+).

It wasn’t long before Praggnanandhaa began chasing the black King with his rooks and the dark-squared bishop and had it cornered along the left flank of the board, with Carlsen eventually resigning in less than 40 moves.