India`s boy wonder Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa came up with another sensational performance as he defeated Dutch Grandmaster Anish Giri to storm into the final of the Chessable Masters, the fourth leg of the USD1.6 million Champions Chess Tour.
The 16-year-old from Chennai showed off all his skills as he simply overpowered the super-strong Dutch No.1 Giri to set up a summit clash with China`s World No. 2 Ding Liren, who stunned World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in the other semifinal.
Praggnanandhaa took lead with a checkmate in the second game of the best-of-four games semifinal encounter. But after two draws, Giri, a Dutch GM of Nepalese origin, returned the favour in the must-win fourth game to draw level at 2-2.
However, he blundered in the first tiebreak game and Pragg capitalised on it to win 2-2, 1.5-0.5. With this win, Praggnanandhaa also sealed his place in the season finale of the Champions Chess Tour, which will be played in November this year.
Giri had gone into the match unbeaten and in red-hot form having topped the USD150,000 event`s Prelim stage leaderboard. But the 29-year-old ran into one of the world`s top talents truly coming of age. Incredibly, schoolboy Pragg has something equally important to do first on Wednesday — he has to tackle his class 11th exams.
“I have to be at school around 8:45am. And now it`s 2am,” he was quoted as saying by the organisers, the Play Magnus Group. And then after the exams a few hours of rest, he will be back at his computer for the final clash with Ding Liren.
Tuesday`s semifinal clashes delivered incredible drama as they involved the four top players from the Prelim stage, all in great form. Pragg`s match with Giri caught fire in the second game after a tame first encounter ended in a draw.