The Boy King’s Gambit: A 16-Year-Old Defeats the Champion of Chess
How a 16-year-old from India upset world champion Magnus Carlsen
Getty Images
Just before 3 a.m. Monday, in his family’s home outside the Southeastern Indian city of Chennai, 16-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (his name literally means, “delight of intellect”) squinted his eyes and stared into his computer screen. He was the only one in his home still awake. “Pragg,” as he’s known, was about to make history.
On the computer, Pragg scrutinized a chess board. His opponent was the famed Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the reigning five-time world champion and arguably the greatest player of all time. Pragg played with the black pieces, putting him at a disadvantage from the start, and Carlsen opened with—of course—the queen’s gambit. Pragg declined the gambit.
From there, Pragg attacked, and after 39 moves, the world champion resigned. A teenager had just defeated the king.
It was a moment that stunned both the chess world and the world at large. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cricket superstar Sachin Tendulkar both tweeted their congratulations. “You’ve made India proud!” said Tendulkar.
Pragg first learned the game when he was three, and his older sister Vaishali had gotten in trouble for watching too much TV. To keep her busy, her parents enrolled her in a chess academy. At home, Pragg watched his sister practice, and he asked her to teach him the rules. By the time he turned eight, he had already won the World Youth Chess Championships. When he was 12, he became the second youngest grandmaster in history.
Pragg and his sister (now a grandmaster herself) train at a Chennai academy started by RB Ramesh that has fueled a chess boom in India. The siblings travel there every day by bus, where they climb stairs to Ramesh’s second story apartment and play chess against kids of all ages. The academy is focused not on results but on passion for the game. “A child shouldn’t begin their journey aiming for success, I believe it takes away the joy from the game,” explains Ramesh. “I want my kids to play chess because they like chess—that passion and enjoyment should be the real reason to succeed.”
That passion has fueled Pragg’s ascension to the top of the chess world. He says that his favorite book is Boris Gelfand's Positional Decision Making. He practices four hours a day but thinks about chess constantly. And, of course, he admires the best players in the world. “As a kid picking up the sport, I had looked up to Magnus,” Pragg explained.
That’s part of what made Monday’s win so special. “I can always go back to this game and seek confidence whenever I need one in the future,” Pragg said.
Carlsen logged off of his computer moments after the match ended. Pragg sat at his desk, thinking over the game. It took some time before the gravity of his accomplishment sunk in. Then Pragg stood up, walked down the hall, and woke his father. He had some news to share, and it couldn’t wait until the morning.
🇺🇦 Across Europe, soccer teams, players, and fans protested Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine yesterday.
🏒 This week in 1980, the American men’s hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in “The Miracle on Ice,” a game that was about a whole lot more than hockey (funny how history repeats itself, isn’t it?). On our Twitter page, we told the story of how the State Department used the hockey game a year later to welcome American hostages home from Iran.
🏀 The reporter who wrote the first article ever about a tall 15-year-old named Shaquille O’Neal met Shaq again this week. The reporter brought that first newspaper clipping—and you can’t help but smile reading Shaq’s reaction.
⛹️♀️ One woman asked her husband if she could play in his rec league basketball game. To say she dominated would be an understatement.
⚾ There won’t be MLB baseball for the foreseeable future, but it is the 30th anniversary of the legendary Simpsons episode “Homer at Bat.” In The Athletic, Roger Clemens, Ken Griffey, Jr., Daryl Strawberry, and others remember their roles in one of the most memorable episodes in television history.
