Magnus Carlsen, a legendary chess player, suffered his third defeat to the Indian Grandmaster in the last six months on Monday at the FTX Crypto Cup.
Carlsen was poised to win the game but made a mistake against Praggnanandhaa just as he was about to force Armageddon. Praggnanandhaa came in second, and Magnus took first place thanks to a higher score.
Carlsen continued by congratulating Praggnanandhaa with a whimsical tweet that said,“Fully deserved, after a performance that showed great resilience, determination, and quality. As for me, I am happy to (barely) be younger than the second and third place finishers combined.” Chess is the new cricket, a Twitter user wrote in a subsequent message in response to Carlsen. “Prove me wrong!” The world champion continued, in his own distinctive manner, to list the reasons why chess was not, in reality, cricket.
Following a 2-2 stalemate in the regular game, Praggnanandhaa overcame the top-ranked Norwegian chess player in the seventh round of the blitz playoff to take second place with 15 points.
With 16 points, Carlsen finished just a hair ahead of the young Indian prodigy and won the Champions Chess Tour event for the second consecutive year.
Praggnanandhaa received accolades in February of this year for defeating world No. 1 Carlsen in an online competition. At the Airthings Masters quick chess competition, Praggnanandhaa, who at age 10 became the youngest international master in history, defeated Carlsen. He defeated Magnus Carlsen in the Chessable Masters online rapid chess competition in May of this year.
A second highly regarded young prodigy, Alireza Firouzja, ended with 15 points as well but had to settle for third place because he had lost the match against Praggnanandhaa earlier.
In the Carlsen-Praggnanandhaa match, the first two games were tied before the world number one won the third to take the lead.The fourth game was unexpectedly won by the Indian, sending the match into tie-breaks. By winning both games in the tie-break, he stunned the Norwegian. The world champion has been defeated twice in online competitions by Praggnanandhaa, who has been in excellent form this year.
