Magnus Carlsen was as soon as once more handed defeat by R Praggnanandhaa within the first recreation of their duel for rating locations on the Las Vegas leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour on Saturday night. Pragg, taking part in with white items, compelled the five-time world champion Carlsen to resign in 43 strikes. Within the recreation performed in Place No 414 in a 10-minute time management, Pragg seized a bonus on the board as per the analysis bar as early because the tenth transfer and by no means yielded his edge from that stage. .
Place 414 sees a pair of knights on one aspect of the king whereas the bishop pair is on one other aspect and the rooks standing as sentries on their common squares on the sting of the board.
The consequence comes simply three days after Praggnanandhaa beat the world no 1 from Norway in 39 strikes. A subsequent defeat to Levon Aronian resulted in Carlsen being knocked out of the race for qualifying for the Winners’s Bracket.
Carlsen began his marketing campaign at Las Vegas with a few wins. Nevertheless, he then sank to losses in opposition to Praggnanandhaa and Wesley So. Then there have been two attracts, which left him needing a win within the ultimate spherical simply to pressure a tiebreak. He beat Bibisara Assaubayeva. However then misplaced each playoff video games to Aronian, who clinched the ultimate qualifying spot from the White Group.
“I feel it began nicely (on Day 1). I felt all proper, comparatively rested at the least in comparison with different days. After which I don’t know, I didn’t take pleasure in the entire means of simply being fairly remoted there for a lot of, many hours and never having the ability to discuss to Peter (coach Peter Heine Nielsen) or Ella (spouse Ella Malone) in between rounds and never having the ability to use my gadgets and so forth. What occurred then was simply form of an entire collapse of my nervous system,” Carlsen instructed the YouTube deal with of Freestyle Chess after his win over Vidit. “I might have scraped by means of in fact with some assist however it could have been utterly underserved. So, it was an entire collapse and yeah, typically you’ve got one dangerous day and I’ve had that in Freestyle earlier than within the preliminaries, however then there’s been a little bit of a wider margin to get by means of. This time it wasn’t. It’s not an excuse. I ought to make it regardless.”
Extremely, beating Carlsen shouldn’t be new for the 19-year-old Indian GM. Praggnanandhaa had famously crushed Carlsen within the classical format on the Norway Chess event in 2023. Earlier than that, he had defeated the Norwegian in a web-based recreation.
Carlsen later bounced again by thrashing Vidit Gujrathi 2-0 to advance to the subsequent spherical whereas the Indian was eradicated from the occasion, ending joint thirteenth with 4 others. The Norwegian stated that he had suffered a “full collapse of his nervous system” on the primary day of the occasion and didn’t take pleasure in not having the ability to discuss to his spouse Ella or his long-time coach Peter Heine Nielsen between rounds.
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Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is a collection of a number of chess occasions across the 12 months, modelled on the grand Slams in tennis began by Germany’s Jan Henric Buettner. In 2025, it was initially presupposed to be held in cities like Weissenhaus, Paris, New York, New Delhi and Cape City. However the New York occasion was shifted to Las Vegas whereas the India occasion was cancelled.
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