Fresh off his triumph at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, R. Praggnanandhaa begins his Sinquefield Cup campaign against America's Samuel Sevian in round one.
R. Praggnanandhaa, who turned 21 on Monday, is set to kick off his Sinquefield Cup campaign against American Grandmaster Samuel Sevian in St. Louis, U.S. Praggnanandhaa enters the tournament in high spirits following a dominant victory in the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz, where he finished 1.5 points ahead of Uzbekistan's Javokhir Sindarov.
That recent win elevated the Indian Grandmaster to second place in the overall Grand Chess Tour (GCT) rankings, trailing only American Fabiano Caruana. Barring an unexpected setback, Praggnanandhaa is likely to secure a spot in the GCT Finals later this year, which features the tour's top-four finishers.
The 10-player round-robin Sinquefield Cup will be played over nine rounds and boasts a total prize pool of $475,000. Sevian was a surprise inclusion in the field after French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja opted to withdraw from the tour.
Praggnanandhaa, who also won the Norway Chess Classic earlier this year, will play four games with the White pieces and five with Black. He joins a formidable field that includes Caruana, Wesley So, Levon Aronian, Sindarov, Vincent Keymer, Anish Giri, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Jorden van Foreest.
In the other Round 1 matchups, Javokhir Sindarov plays Levon Aronian, Vincent Keymer takes on Wesley So, Fabiano Caruana faces Jorden van Foreest, and Anish Giri meets Maxime Vachier-Lagrave.
Reporting sourced from The Hindu Sport. Photo courtesy The Hindu Sport.