Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa.
Credit: PTI Photo
St Louis, USA: Indian Grandmaster R Pragganandhaa will lock horns with the world's best yet again as he takes on an elite field in the St Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament that gets underway here.
A slight dip in recent results, notwithstanding, Praggnanandhaa will be looking forward to finish on the podium in the final standings of the Grand Chess Tour that also entitles him to earn a bonus cash prize from a kitty of $175000. The winner will take home $100000 while the runner-up will be richer by $50000.
Standing on the third spot in the overall tour results thus far, the Indian has two back-to-back outings to improve his position as immediately after the rapid and blitz, he will be taking part in the Sinquefield Cup where he will also be joined by compatriot and world championship challenger D Gukesh.
With his two straight victories in Bucharest, Romania, and Zagreb, Croatia, last year's tour winner Fabiano Caruana of the United States is firmly on course for an encore with 22.25 points in his bag so far. Alireza Firoujza of France is in second spot on 17.58 points ahead of Pragganandhaa who has 16.25 points.
Not far behind is Gukesh on 14.25 and is placed fourth but the problem for him lies in the fact that he has only event remaining unlike the top three who will play all four.
In the rapid and blitz, there will be usual suspects in the form of Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave of France, Nodirbek Abdusattarov of Uzbekistan and Wesley So of the United States.
Other three participants are all wild cards, including filled US trio of Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura and Lenier Dominguez.
The event will have nine rapid and 18 blitz games between these 10 players.
Each rapid victory is worth two points with a draw yielding one point while in the blitz one point will be awarded for a win and 0.5 for each draw.
The event carries a total prize pool of $175000 with $40000 going to the winner. It may be recalled that Caurana had won the Zagreb leg with as many as five rounds to spare.
Pragganandhaa did not participate in Zagreb but was a joint winner in the Superbet Classic held in Bucharest along with Caruana, Alireza and Gukesh. However, in the tiebreak, Caruana defeated all his rivals to win the event.