Although he beat the defending world champion of Gukesh in blitz blisages to win the prestigious Tata steel chess tournament at Wijk Aan Zee, in the Netherlands, R Praggnanandhaa will not be in action in the first event of The Grand Chess Freestyle 2025 tour in Germany. Here is why.
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Rameshbabu praggnanandhaa has undoubtedly succeeded in the greatest triumph of his career so far after winning the Tata Steel Masters 2025, defeating the tastes of the world champion by reigning D Gukesh as well as Arjun Erigaisi to become the second Indian to win the prestigious event after the legendary Viswanathan Anand.
Gukesh was a strong favorite for the title after his victory on Ding Liren in the confrontation of the Fidore World Championship in Singapore in December and put a superb tight to stay in the head of the joint until the very last lap, which trained the title of the title Blitz Tie-Brishs.
Praggnanandhaa, however, underlined the depth of the generation of golden failures from India by beating Gukesh as well as Arjun, who was part of the horses but finally finished a disappointing 10th, in the title.
Pragg, as he is popularly known, directed the classification of “masters” for the best part of the tournament. And with regard to equality breaks, he held his nerve despite the fact that he was 0-1 to beat Gukesh in the next two games and bring the trophy as well as the money price.
Read also | Tata Steel Praggnanandhaa’s chess champion reveals how Gukesh, Arjun inspired him to work harder
The 19 -year -old had a superb race last year, beating Magnus Carlsen in the failures of Norway before helping the Indian team “ Open ” Bulldozer their way to gold with Gukesh, Arjun as well as Vidit Gujrathi and Pentala Harikrishna at the 45th Chess Olympiad at chess failures in the 45th Olympiad failure.
The victory of Wijk Aan Zee on Sunday, however, is the greatest of Pragg’s career so far and confirms his place among the elite of sport.
So why is it not part of the training of the opening event of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour in Weissenhaus, Germany, which begins on Friday?
Why R Praggnanandhaa will not be in action in Weissenhaus
The opening event of the inaugural tour of the Grand Chelem Freestyle failures, which includes five events in five different cities on four continents this year and will be played in the unique format of Freestyle, alias Chess960, will star 10 players, Of which the majority are the who is from the world of chess.
This includes world world champion n ° 1 and fivefold Magnus Carlsen, who helped create the tour as well as the club of Freestyle chess with the German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner and the defending world champion Gukesh. Anand was also one of the 10 participants, but withdrew from the tournament in the midst of tensions between free failures and the world director world, of which he is the vice-president.
The programming of the Weissenhaus event includes the three best players from the Freestyle Chess Chéillage in February of last year as well as the three best -classified players in the Fide April 2024 ranking. A niche was also reserved for the world chess champion, That Gukesh became after defeating Ding, while the organizers distributed some jokers to Anand and German general manager Vincent Keymer, the first being replaced by Javokhir Sindarov after having decided to withdraw.
The only way in which Praggnanandhaa could have qualified for the event was the Swiss qualification tournament held online last month. And while the world No. 7 has reached the 16 -year -old round, where he defeated the compatriot emptits, his hopes to face Gukesh, Carlsen and others in Weissenhaus ended with a defeat against Sindarov in the quarterfinals of the qualification tournament.
Sindarov would later beat the Yu Yangi of China before losing against the Grand Master Russian -lovien Vladimir Fedoseev in the final for the latter to win 10th place. Anand’s sudden removal, however, would later come as a silver lining for Uzbekistan GM.
