FIDE Chess World Cup: R Praggnanandhaa goes down fighting to Magnus Carlsen in the final

R Praggnanandhaa finished second-best at the FIDE Chess World Cup after Magnus Carlsen topped him in rapid tie-breaker games on Thursday. In the process, Carlsen won his maiden World Cup title. They had drawn their two classical games over the last two days. Praggnanandhaa was the second Indian, after Viswanathan Anand, to qualify for the Chess World Cup final. Anand, though, had gone on to win the FIDE World Cup, held under a different format, in 2000 and 2002. As winner of the Chess World Cup, Carlsen will take home $110,000 while Praggnanandhaa pockets $80,000 from a total prize pool of $1.83 million. In the first 25’+10’ tie-break game, Carlsen, playing with black pieces, produced a fantastic endgame to take the opener. This forced Praggnanandhaa into needing to win the second game, with black pieces, to keep the final going. However, Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa drew the second 25’+10’ rapid game which gave the Norwegian Grandmaster a 1.5-0.5 edge to seal the title. The classical games on Tuesday and Wednesday had finished in draws after 35 and 30 moves respectively. In the first game, while playing with white pieces, 18-year-old Praggnanandhaa forced a stalemate. And in the second game, Carlsen played with white pieces and the duo settled for a draw after one and a half hours of play. Praggnanandhaa was ahead on time at the start of the second round, but was unable to press home the advantage. He himself came under time by the end of the contest. Praggnanandhaa had a remarkable run throughout the tournament. He beat World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura and World No.3 Fabiano Caruana to set up a final date against the World No 1 Carlsen. By progressing to the semi-finals, Praggnanandhaa had already qualified for the Candidates tournament next year. It helped the Chennai-born chess player to become the third youngest player after Bobby Fischer and Carlsen to qualify for the Candidates tournament. Meanwhile, in the match for the third place, USA’s Fabiano Caruana beat local favourite Nijat Abasov in their tie-breaker clash.