To become the top Indian, R Praggnanandhaa defeats Ding Liren, the world champion, and rises over Viswanathan Anand

In the ongoing TATA Steel Chess Tournament, chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa made history on Tuesday, January 16, defeating world champion Ding Liren and surpassing seasoned Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand to take the top spot among Indian Grandmasters for the first time in his career.

Praggnanandhaa was taken aback by his triumph against the Chinese world champion since he did not anticipate the latter to lose so quickly.

“I thought I quickly reached equality, but for him, everything seemed to start going wrong after that. According to Praggnanandhaa, “Even after I won the pawn, I felt it should be holdable,” as Chess.com reported.

“I believe that beating a player of that caliber is always noteworthy since it’s not a simple feat to do. It feels nice to win against a world champion in traditional chess for the first time,” he said.

Although Praggnanandhaa seemed happy with his tournament start, he is aware of the hurdles that lay ahead of him.

It’s excellent. The first three games were really fascinating, in my opinion. Although I believe I am performing well, last year was the same. I believe it’s crucial to have a positive attitude during the whole tournament since there was a moment when I was playing pretty well before my performance declined significantly.”