Praggnanandhaa battles his way to semis of FIDE World Cup

Manisha Mohite

The tie-break game between Arjun Erigaisi and RameshBabu Praggnanandhaa had many heart-stopping moments with some tremendous fighting display by both teenagers before the latter delivered the knock-out punch in the seventh game with the White pieces to stake the last fourth place in the semifinal of the FIDE World Cup. 

Praggu won the tie-break with a 4-3 score and became the first Indian to advance to the semifinals of the FIDE World Cup. Incidentally Viswanathan Anand had won the World Cup in 2000 which was a 24 player event.  

Magnus Carlsen of Norway, the highest rated player in the world, his former challenger Fabiano Caruana of US and local lad Nijat Abasov had already secured their slots in the semifinals yesterday. Praggu will take on Caruana while Carlsen will lock horns with Abasov.

The Classical two game mini-match between Praggu and Arjun had resulted in a 1-1 deadlock on Wednesday. Today too in the tie-break, the first two games of the Rapid game ended in deadlock with neither player able to piece each other’s armour.

The tie-break games in chess are intense, complex with time reduction in every set of two games starting with a 25 minute each game with 10 seconds increment after every move, followed by 10 minutes each with 10 seconds increment after every move and further ties resolved by 5 minutes each with a 3 second increment per move. Further tie would be resolved by repeat three minutes each plus 2 seconds increment per move.

Things started heating up in the shorter time controls with Praggu drawing first blood with the black pieces in the second set of tie-break. Arjun immediately hit back with the Black pieces in the fourth game to equalize, forcing another set of tie-break. Once again Praggu won with Blacks in the 5th game and Arjun once again equalized with a victory with the Black pieces in the 6th game.

There was some drama before the start of the seventh game with Praggu arriving a bit late and losing 30 seconds on the clock, almost hara-kiri moment when you are allotted just3 minutes each on the clock.

The 7th game played in a three minutes each with 3 second increment per move had Praggu in comfortable command, playing at break-neck speed. “I sort of lost track of time as my clock showed five minutes more for the game to begin and visited the washroom” explained Praggu later.

Arjun had been impressive throughout this event and this was a very heart-breaking moment for him as he was eliminated from the tournament. A victory would have meant a chance to enter the Candidates scheduled next year. Arjun however went all guns blazing, doing him and India proud with his power packed performance.

The first two games had both players treading cautiously, intent more on simplification by exchange of pieces rather than trying to force things. The scenario changed completely with both players getting into aggressive mode with shorter time-controls. Incidentally it was surprising that all four victories before the final seventh game went in the favour of players playing with Blacks.

Tomorrow is the rest day for the event and the first game of the semifinal would be played on Saturday.