How Praggnanandhaa overturned a lean year to leap this year

Yet, at a time when expectations were sky-high and the wunderkind was expected to elevate his game, he endured a mediocre Candidates tournament by his own admission, followed by a more subdued season as his individual performance dipped. Although he led India to a historic team gold at the Budapest Olympiad, he remained in the shadows of Arjun Erigaisi and D. Gukesh, who took the world by storm.

Where Arjun breached the elusive 2800 Elo rating mark, Gukesh owned the year by becoming the youngest Candidates winner and then the youngest-ever World Champion at 18. While the trio of Praggnanandhaa, Arjun, and Gukesh are still young and there is ample time to prove their mettle, 2024 was simply not Praggnanandhaa’s year. A large part could be attributed to his willingness to experiment. While things did not pan out as he would have wanted, this phase provided the clarity Pragg needed to plan his 2025 season.

Praggnanandhaa battles Wesley So in the Sinquefield Cup tiebreaks. (PHOTO: Lennart Ootes via Grand Chess Tour)

And, as things stand, Praggnanandhaa is not willing to slow down this year. On Thursday morning, he finished atop the standings of the Sinquefield Cup alongside two Americans, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So.

Praggnanandhaa began the event by beating compatriot Gukesh in the first round, and never relinquished his grip throughout the tournament. As fate would have it, however, he lost the three-way tiebreaks to So, which denied him his fourth classical title this year.

So, surprising everyone, mounted a comeback, first beating Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattorov in a must-win match to enforce the three-way tiebreak, then defeating Praggnanandhaa and drawing with Caruana to eventually win the event. Praggnanandhaa finished second ahead of Caruana after registering a win in their tiebreak match, and has qualified for the 2025 Grand Chess Tour finals alongside Americans Caruana, Levon Aronian, and France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.

Fruits of labour

Praggnanandhaa expressed satisfaction with the result. “I believe it went well,” he said after drawing his final round against Aronian. “After Zagreb (where he finished second-last in rapid & blitz event), I needed a good result here to make it, and I think I played solid, good chess. I was never worse in any games. I got two big chances which I took, so I can be satisfied with my performance.”

Huge congratulations to the qualifiers for the Top 4 Final of the Grand Chess Tour in Brazil! 🇧🇷♟️
The battles for the 2025 GCT crown will continue in São Paulo from September 27 – October 3. 🏆#Grandchesstour #chess pic.twitter.com/Ct3DyZsivq

— Grand Chess Tour (@GrandChessTour) August 27, 2025

Beyond winning three major Classical events this year, what has been even more impressive is Praggnanandhaa’s consistency, particularly in the longest format of the game. Looking only at the Classical tournaments in 2025, even in events he did not win, Pragg remained a top contender in each one of them.

At the Prague International Chess Festival – won by his good friend Aravindh Chithambaram – Praggnanandhaa scored 5 points, finishing joint second and tying on points with Dutch grandmaster Anish Giri and China’s Wei Yi. A second-place finish at the Stepan Avagyan Memorial, combined with another top-two spot at the Sinquefield Cup, shows why Praggnanandhaa is redefining consistency.

Both Praggnanandhaa and So played a spotless game with an identical accuracy of 98.9 percent, giving each other practically no chance to make any inroads. (Photo Credit: Lennart Ootes/Grand Chess Tour)

Considering only points scored in the Classical rounds, since tiebreaker rules vary across events, Praggnanandhaa is yet to finish outside the top two spots this year. Since winning the Uzchess Cup in late June, Praggnanandhaa has competed in the SuperUnited Rapid & Blitz in Zagreb, the Freestyle event in Las Vegas, the Last Chance Qualifiers at the Esports World Cup in Riyadh, and has now wrapped up the Grand Chess Tour league stages in Saint Louis.

Gruelling schedule

If his 2024 season has been hectic so far, the events to follow only add to the challenge he has undertaken this year. After just a four-day break, he will be in action at the high-profile FIDE Grand Swiss in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, until mid-September. Following a nine-day respite, he travels to South America for the GCT finals in São Paulo, which run through the first week of October. That same month will see the start of the biggest chess event in India since the 2022 Chess Olympiad: the FIDE World Cup in Goa.

To top it all off, his year will conclude with the Global Chess League, the Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz in Kolkata, and the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Doha. This schedule might just offer a clear understanding of the immense scale the Chennai lad has committed to this year.

However, with his qualification for the 2025 Grand Chess Tour finals secured and one foot in the door for a 2026 Candidates spot, thanks to an excellent standing on the current FIDE Circuit leaderboard, Praggnanandhaa can at least feel some mental relief after a gruelling schedule.