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3 min readUpdated: May 22, 2026 12:29 AM IST
R Praggnanandhaa in action in Round 3 of the Candidates. (FIDE/Yoav Nis)
India’s R Praggnanandhaa slumped to his first defeat of the Super Chess Classic Romania tournament at Bucharest on Thursday, losing to Fabiano Caruana in 33 moves with white pieces in a round 7 encounter. Coincidentally, while Pragg suffered his first loss of the tournament, his contemporary from Uzbekistan Javokhir Sindarov experienced his first victory, defeating tournament leader Vincent Keymer.
In a game that began with a Queen’s Gambit Declined on the board, Praggnanandhaa was in trouble from as early as the 25th move against Caruana after a shuffle of the queen from c2 to e2 saw the evaluation bar drop and indicate a hefty advantage to the American grandmaster. Another move of his rook on the back rank from e1 to c1 on move 28 left Pragg in an un-winnable situation, even though he had an additional pawn by this stage.
By the end, when Pragg decided to throw in the towel, even the single pawn advantage of the Indian prodigy had disappeared.
After the seventh round, Pragg finds himself in tied fourth place with three others (including Sindarov) on 3.5 points. Caruana rose to joint lead, only one point ahead of Pragg, which means there is still hope the Indian prodigy could make a run at the title in the final two rounds.
Pragg will take on Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the next round before facing Dutch GM Anish Giri in the final round. His only victory of the tournament so far has come over Sindarov, who has struggled so far before he finally managed to pull off a victory on Thursday.
Both Sindarov and Praggnanandhaa will consider themselves unlucky to have been held to draws by French-Iranian grandmaster Alireza Firouzja earlier in the tournament. Alireza withdrew from the tournament mid way due to an ankle injury, after playing two games from a hotel room bed with his leg propped up on multiple pillows.
Alireza’s pull out would mean that besides the three games he lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri and Fabiano Caruana, he would end up gifting a point to the other four players in the field as forfeit. The only players who lost points to him were Pragg and Sindarov.
Sindarov was sympathetic to Alireza’s situation.
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“If I was in his situation I would do the same thing. Four hours or five hours lying in bed and playing chess is crazy,” Sindarov said. “Now I just want to finish my tournament well. I’m not thinking about other things.”
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