R Praggnanandhaa.
Credit: PTI
St. Louis (USA): R Pragganandhaa has been handed a decent draw at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament with the Indian Grandmaster set to begin his campaign with black pieces against Levon Aronian of United States here.
With white games against the French duo of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Alireza Firoujza, Grand chess tour leader Fabiano Caruana of United States and Nodirbek Abdusottorov of Uzbekistan, the Indian has a good opportunity to improve from his current third rank on the tour.
After doing well in the early part of the year, Praggnanandhaa was not at his best in the Biel Masters and dropped some important rating points to go out of top ten world rankings. Known as someone who recovers quickly, the Indian who turned 19 last week, he will hope to make amends and do well in the last two events here.
With $1,75,000 (Rs 1.46 crore) at stake as the total prize pool Caruana starts as the big favourite for the title given his current form. The American had won the four-player tiebreaker in the Superbet Classic at Bucharest, Romania and then followed up with a five-rounds-to-spare victory at the Superunited rapid and blitz in Zagreb, Croatia.
American Hikaru Nakamura is one player who can spoil anyone’s party. Not part of the nine-confirmed invited players’ pool for the tour, Nakamura plays here as one of the three wild-card participants along with compatriot Lenier Dominguez and Aronian.
Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi might be struggling as someone who has been twice world championship challenger but he has it in him to regain the magical touch on any given day. Nepomniachtchi’s performance will however depend on how many games he wins overall.
The event, to be played under rapid and blitz rules, will have nine rounds of rapid and eighteen rounds of blitz between ten players. Each rapid victory is worth two points with one point awarded for a draw.
In the blitz however, the usual scoring system of one for a win and 0.5 for a draw will be followed to determine the overall winner.
The five day event will be followed by the Sinquefield Cup, the last event on the Grand Chess tour this year wherein India’s D Gukesh will also join Praggnanandhaa.