At the FIDE World Cup the previous year, Praggnanandhaa had also gone on a similar giant-killing rampage. He had beaten Caruana and World No. 3 Hikaru Nakamura to reach the final, where Carlsen eventually defeated him in tiebreaks.
This year, a few hours after Pragg's triumph, Arjun Erigaisi won the French team title on Sunday, defeating IM Loic Travadon in just 14 moves for his fourth straight victory. With these two outcomes, India now has three players in the top 10 of the FIDE live ratings. Viswanathan Anand is placed 11th in the world in the live ratings, while Arjun Erigaisi is the highest-ranked Indian in the FIDE live ratings at No. 4. Gukesh, a contender for the World Championship, is ranked 7th, while Praggnanandhaa is ranked 10th.
It should be mentioned that FIDE publishes its ratings at the beginning of each month, and as live ratings are determined in real time, rankings may change occasionally every day if events are in progress.
In an interview with The Indian Express prior to the commencement of the Norway Chess competition, Carlsen delineated the distinctions among the three young Indian players, who are predominantly regarded as the future and face of Indian chess: "Gukesh is a very calculation-based player. Pragg also calculates well but he’s a little more intuitive. He is more of a player, in the sense that he is more of a gamer. Arjun is just a complete mad man at the board. He wants to kill you in every single game. Has crazy preparation and plays extremely ambitiously and that’s what makes him very dangerous."
Additionally, USA's Caruana dropped to World No. 3 after losing to Praggnanandhaa in Norway Chess, while fellow countryman Nakamura moved up to No. 2. Nakamura is currently leading the open tournament standings at Norway Chess, having defeated Praggnanandhaa in the previous round.
“The game was good. it's not easy to outplay such a strong opponent in these kinds of endgames where there is just a very slight advantage. So I'm very happy with the result,” Praggnanandhaa told after the game.
Caruana mistake against Praggnanandhaa proves costly
As it appeared that the match would end in a draw, Caruana made a mistake on move 66 when his king was checked by Pragg's charging knight. His move to slide the king to f6 instead of f7 caused the engine to flinch in surprise.
Pragg had calculated that he would have a little advantage before the endgame broke down, noting that although the theory predicted that a game ending in a draw with his two pawns and Caruana's one on the board aside from a knight apiece, he had the opportunity to obtain something more.
“I’ve got a very interesting endgame. It is generally said knight four versus three is winning. And knight three versus two is supposedly a draw. But I’ve looked at some of these positions and if the white king is quite active it can be tricky! I’m hoping it will be tricky in this case as well,” Pragg said in the confessional booth in the middle of his game against Caruana. It was undoubtedly tricky for Caruana, who, only a few days prior, was on the verge of surpassing Carlsen as the World No. 1 but is currently rated third globally according to live ratings.
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