Oslo: It was well past midnight in India when Praggnanandhaa walked out of the playing hall in the Norwegian capital with a Round 3 win and a brag-worthy 2-1 score in classical chess against world No 1, Magnus Carlsen.
In a wild game that lasted 46 moves with time trouble bringing on pandemonium, the five-time world champion went from objectively winning to miscalculating and things unravelled pretty quickly, shredding the prospect of even salvaging a draw.
Seven-time Norway Chess champion Carlsen, who has lost two classical games out of three so far in the tournament, has dropped 13.7 points to 2827.7 Elo and is now in last place in the tournament standings. It is Praggnanandhaa’s second win over Carlsen at the event. The last one was in 2024.
“I felt like it was pretty much a repeat of the game against Gukesh last year where I missed one thing and then I kind of panicked and lost within a few moves,” Carlsen said, comparing his Wednesday’s loss to his now-famous table-slam and defeat to the reigning world champion.
Describing his win as a “coin toss” that could have gone either way, Praggnanandhaa spoke of both of them being “ready to fight”, which brought on a crazy game. The Indian Grandmaster appeared to have surprised Carlsen in the opening, who wound up burning through his clock and “wimping out a bit.”
His trips to the confessional booth involved self-flagellation – “there are at least 18 different moves for White on move 6 of the Najdorf and yet I managed to be surprised” and tearing into the NBA app for showing spoilers of the Western Conference finals.
Going for the exchange sacrifice by giving up his rook with 39…Nxd6?! was far from a great call by Carlsen and he followed it up later with a g-pawn push. With sufficient time on his clock he would have perhaps been able to extricate himself from its self-sabotaging consequences. But Norway Chess time control – two hours for 40 moves and a 10-second increment from move 41 – was built to birth such games.
Praggnanandhaa’s coach Vaibhav Suri was understandably pleased of his player being able to catch Carlsen unawares in the opening. It’s also Praggnanandhaa’s first win over Carlsen since the 39-year-old Grandmaster took over as his coach.
“The 2024 win was a lot cleaner, where he dominated from the start. This one was a bit topsy-turvy but a win is a win,” said Suri. He was mighty pleased with himself when he learnt of Carlsen confessing that he was surprised in the opening. “I’ll take it as a compliment, my ego is already slightly high, because it’s not easy to surprise Magnus. He has an insanely good opening preparation.” Though he’s no longer world champion, Carlsen is still the guy everyone wants to try to beat to use as bragging rights and barometer of their own form.
“Honestly, this is not a game to celebrate too much about!,” Praggnanandhaa said, “In these time scrambles it’s basically like tossing a coin. It could have gone Magnus’ way or my way, so it’s not something to be extremely proud of or anything. I’m happy that I played well in the first half, I was playing with control, but in this time control it can go either way.”
