Airthings Masters 2022: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, a 16-year old Indian Grandmaster scripted history on February 21, 2022, by defeating the World Champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

Key Highlights:

• Indian GM defeated him in the eighth round of the Airthings Masters online rapid Chess tournament.
• Praggnanandhaa, while playing with Black Pieces managed to outfox world No. 1 and the reigning five-time world champion in 39 moves in a Tarrasch variation.
• He lies in joint 12th spot after eight rounds with eight points.
• He is the third Indian who has been able to beat Norwegian Chess King Magnus Carlsen.
• The other two Indians who beat Carlsen were Viswanathan Anand and Pentala Harikrishna.
• It has four games played on each of the three days (Feb 19-21) of the preliminary stage while the three rounds will be played on February 22, 2022.

About Airthing Masters 2022:

• Airthing Masters has kicked off the Meltwater Champions Chess tour of 2022.
• The tournament is taking place from February 19-26, 2022.
• Sixteen players in total will battle it out in the round-robin stage of the online event before the eight go forward to the knockout stage.

About Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa:

• Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa is a 16-years old Indian Grandmaster.
• He is a Chess prodigy and the fifth-youngest person ever to achieve the title of Grandmaster after Abhimanyu Mishra, Sergey Karjakin, Gukesh D, and Javokhir Sindarov.

Achievements:

In 2013, Praggnanandhaa had won the World Youth Chess Championships under-8 title.

In 2015, he won the Under-10 title.

In 2016, he became the youngest international master in history, at the age of 10 years, 10 months and 19 days.

In November 2017, Praggnanandhaa achieved his first grandmaster norm at the West Junior Chess Championship where he finished fourth with 8 points.