12-year-old R Praggnanandhaa on his way to becoming youngest chess grandmaster in history
What's the story?
12-year-old R Praggnanandhaa is well on his way to becoming the youngest chess grandmaster and is on track to break the record.
The child prodigy is currently participating in the World Junior Chess Championships in Italy and the Chennai-born youth is currently placed in joint-second place.
In case you didn't know
The youngster hit the headlines when he became the youngest International Master in history and in the last few months, he has recorded a number of memorable victories against senior grandmasters.
Back in early September, the 12-year-old stunned British Grandmaster David Howell at the Isle of Man tournament.
The heart of the matter
Chess icon Susan Polgar took to social media to voice her admiration for the youngster earlier and She touted him as the one to watch and predicted a bright future for him.
Praggnanandhaa defeated top seed Jorden van Foreest at the World Championships and was in a good position to beat Russia's Kirill Alekseenko. Praggnanandhaa has already achieved the rating he needs to become a grandmaster. But he has so far, fallen short of scoring any grandmaster norms. The current record-holder is Sergey Karjakin at 12 years and 7 months.
Praggnanandhaa shocked his compatriot and fourth seed S.L. Narayanan in the fifth round at the Championships. With regard to other Indians, Aravindh Chithambaram drew with Aleksey Sorokin, Harsha Bharathakoti lost to Kirill Shevchenko, Shardul Gagare defeated Sumiya Bilguun, Peng Xiangjian drew with S.L. Narayanan, Vladislav Bakhmatsky drew with Vaibhav Suri, Gergely Kantor drew with Mohammad Nubairshah Shaikh, Alexandr Triapishko defeated Sidhant Mohapatra, Luca Moroni Jr drew with Kumar Gaurav and Pier Luigi Basso defeated Krishna Teja in the sixth round.
What's next?
As Polgar said, the 12-year-old is ahead of pace to complete his GM norms and if he can continue in the same vein, he should be able to break Karjakin's record.
Sportskeeda's Take
As if it wasn't already evident, Praggnanandhaa is the next rising star of Indian chess. We at Sportskeeda certainly believe that the youngster can take over Karjakin's record of being the youngest chess grandmaster.