Praggnanandhaa eyes third norm in Italy event

The Chennai boy just completed his second GM norm last week when he won the Herkalion Fischer Memorial tournament in Greece. He needs one more norm to complete his GM title and for that he has to wait till June this year when he plays in Italy.

He did play in Gibraltar in between but the norm eluded him. “I played in Gibraltar because it is one of the best tournaments in the world,” said Praggnanandhaa. The Velammal school student stayed in the hunt for some time before losing his way. Praggu’s philosophy of playing chess is simple: he loves the pieces and he loves the challenges.

But does it put pressure on him because he has been in the limelight at a young age and the record that he missed by a whisker at the World junior where he could have got the GM title straight without having to go through the norms?

“Not at all,” says RB Ramesh. “He plays normal chess. He is not thinking about what would have been.” Praggnanandhaa started playing chess when he was three years old. As for his hobbies, he plays cricket and badminton but he is quick to add, “I don’t follow cricket, I just play.” 

Praggu admitted he went to Gibraltar without any expectations. “This was a very tough open tournament because there were many players of 2700/2800 ratings,” he says. But before that he played in Australia in a closed tournament and it was tough. “If I had achieved six and a half points I would have got a GM norm,” laughs the little master.