Grandmaster Pragnananda won the Norway Chess Open title

The splendid performance of young Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa (Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa) of the country continues. This year has been great so far for the 16-year-old Indian Grandmaster. Pragnananda made a stellar performance by winning the Norwegian Chess Group A Open Chess Tournament ( Norway Chess Open Group A ) with 7.5 points in nine rounds. The top-seeded 16-year-old GM continued the scintillating momentum and remained unbeaten throughout the tournament.

Pragyananand (ELO 2642) finished one point ahead of second-ranked IM Marcel Efroimsky (Israel) and IM Jung Min Seo (Sweden). Praneeth was tied third with six points but slipped to sixth in the last table due to a low tie-break score. Besides Praneeth, Pragyanand defeated Viktor Mikhalevsky (8th round), Vitaly Kunin (6th round), Mukhamadzokhid Suyarov (4th round), Semen Mutusov (2nd round) and Mathias Unneland (1st round). They played their other three matches in draws.

On the other hand, former world champion Viswanathan Anand ended his campaign in the Norwegian chess tournament with a ninth and third place victory over Aryan Tari in the final round. World number one player Magnus Carlsen became its winner. The classical match between Anand and Tari ended in a draw after 22 moves. The 52-year-old Indian veteran then registered a victory in 87 moves in the ‘Armageddon (Sudden Death Tiebreak)’ match on Saturday morning.

He finished third with 14.5 points behind Carlsen (16.5 points) and Azerbaijan’s Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (15.5). Anand took the lead in this tournament after the fifth round by defeating Carlsen, but his campaign suffered a setback in the eighth round due to a loss to Mamedyarov.