Praggmatic Sanction: the ascent of an Indian chess prodigy

The original Pragmatic Sanction was an edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, on 19 April 1713. It ended that the Habsburg monarchy, the extensive territories of which included the Archduchy of Austria and  the Kingdom of Hungary, could be inherited by a daughter — undivided. Division would have irrevocably weakened the Empire, whose proud, if enigmatic motto, was AEIOU. Not just a mnemonic for the vowels, but actually standing for the orgulous assertion: Alle Erde Ist Österreich Untertan (“the whole world is subject to Austria”). That daughter turned out to be the Empress Maria Theresa, who did eventually succeed, but only after the (with hindsight inevitable) War of the Austrian Succession.

And what of the chess succession, now that Magnus Carlsen has renounced his world title and  elected to transform himself into the king over the water?

One of my recurring nightmares used to be that the teenage Indian Grandmaster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (born 10 August 2005) would qualify for a world title match against Ian Nepomniachtchi. That would create such a tongue twister as to make it almost impossible to report on the contest for lay persons. The chess correspondent would be obliged to resort to the somewhat disrespectful abbreviations “Pragg” and “Nepo”.

Availing myself of the aforementioned abbreviated escape route, Pragg qualified as an International Master at the age of 10, the youngest at the time to do so, and as a Grandmaster at the age of 12, the second-youngest at the time. On 22 February 2022, aged 16, he became the youngest player to defeat the then world champion Magnus Carlsen, when he beat the Norwegian in a rapidplay game at the Airthings Masters Tournament.

A bald statistical narrative of the prodigy’s subsequent triumphs reveals the rapid upwards curve of his meteoric career. In July 2019, Pragg won the Xtracon Chess Open in Denmark, scoring 8½/10 points (+7–0=3). On 12 October 2019, he took gold in the World Youth Championships Under-18 section with a score of 9/11. In December 2019, he graduated as the second-youngest person to achieve a rating of 2600. He accomplished this feat when aged only 14 years, 3 months and 24 days, about the same age when (as the Jurassic period gave way to the Cretaceous) I was persuading the Committee of the Battersea Chess club to permit a 14 year old to actually enter the club championship.

In April 2021, Pragg went on to win the Polgar Challenge, the first leg (out of four) of the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, a rapid online event organized by Julius Baer Group and chess24.com for young talents. He scored 15.5/19, 1.5 points ahead of the next best placed competitors. This win helped him qualify for the next Meltwater Champions Chess Tour on 24 April 2021, where he finished in 10th place with a score of 7/15 (+4-5=6). This included wins against the leading grandmasters Teimour Radjabov, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Sergey Karjakin (who still retains the record of becoming the youngest grandmaster) and Johan-Sebastian Christiansen. Pragg drew against the still regnant World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

On 20 February 2022, Pragg distinguished himself as only the third Indian player (after Anand and Harikrishna) to win a game against Carlsen (see below) in any time format, in the online Airthings Masters rapid tournament of the Champions Chess Tour. At the Chessable Masters tournament later that year, he defeated Carlsen once again, his second win over him in 3 months, and advanced to the finals. He also defeated Carlsen no fewer than three times in the FTX Crypto Cup 2022, finishing second behind Carlsen in the final standings.

And for his latest trick… In the recently concluded FIDÉ Chess World Cup 2023, held in Baku, the former home town of Garry Kasparov, 18-year-old Pragg emerged as the world’s youngest player ever to have reached the Chess World Cup final. Pragg had defeated the former challengers Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana in tie-breaks in the semi-final. His match in the final against the now former World Champion Magnus Carlsen resulted in a defeat in the rapid tie-breaks. This was sufficient, nevertheless, to  secure Pragg an honourable second place, as well as confirmed qualification for the 2024 Candidates Tournament to determine the challenger for the new World Champion Ding Liren.

Although Pragg succumbed to Carlsen in the Baku Final, the Indian teenager has “Future World Champion” indelibly inscribed on the Sibylline prophecies of his future destiny. Perhaps, in years to come, when the Magnus star has faded, Pragg may seize the world title and restore the traditional situation whereby the incumbent world champion and the world number one are identical. By renouncing his champion’s title, yet still continuing to notch up victory after victory, Carlsen has devalued the title to the point where it is practically worthless. The chess world now awaits a new Praggmatic Sanction, the triumph of Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, to restore the succession of the world championship to its accustomed lustre.

And now, that afore-mentioned game from the Airthings Masters Tournament:

Magnus Carlsen vs. Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

And as an extra, a video link to the always excellent Agdamator’s column on YouTube, featuring a game from my youth, back in the Cretaceous Period, against Fielder from the Battersea Club championship.

Raymond Keene’s  book “Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus”, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from Blackwell’s . Meanwhile, Ray’s 206th book, “Chess in the Year of the King”, with a foreword by TheArticle contributor Patrick Heren, and written in collaboration with former Reuters chess correspondent, Adam Black, has just appeared and is also available from the same source or from Amazon