Oslo 18 : Another tournament in 2025, another defeat at the hands of an Indian for Magnus Carlsen. After losing twice to world champion D Gukesh in the classical format at Norway Chess and then in the rapid format at the SuperUnited Rapid and Blitz Croatia tournament earlier this month, the World No 1 was handed a defeat by R Praggnanandhaa in the Las Vegas leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Thursday.
In a group-stage clash to determine the eight players who will fight for the title in the ‘Upper Bracket’, Carlsen was on a roll at the start of the event, winning his first two games and playing out a draw. Then, he ran into Praggnanandhaa in his fourth game, which resulted in a defeat in 39 moves.
That started a series of results for Carlsen that saw him end in fifth place in the eight-player group (called Group White, with the other eight players in Group Black) which means that Carlsen cannot play for the title anymore at the Las Vegas tournament. At best, he can now finish third. Praggnanandhaa was ahead on the eval bar from the 10th move itself when he hastily pushed his pawn ahead (10…b5?!). The Norwegian compounded his problems by jumping Praggnanandhaa’s knight with his c file pawn (11…cxd4?!). Pragg’s second knight calmly hopped away from danger, but found a square (12.Nf5) which made it as lethal as a sniper. In a game where players had 10 minutes on the clock at the start, Carlsen had just 3.24 minutes at this stage. But he spent 3.10 minutes trying to extricate himself out of trouble without activating his queen.
@credit/source: TheIndianExpress