Chess: Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa reaches final at 2am on day of his exams

India’s 16-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa jumped into the world elite this week when the Tamil Nadu teenager reached the final of the online $150,000 Chessable Masters by bold attacking play. It was the latest and most significant success yet for the former prodigy, who became the youngest ever international master at 11 and narrowly missed the youngest grandmaster title at 12.

The epic quality of the schoolboy’s feat was underlined in his post-match interview after defeating the Netherlands world No 9, Anish Giri, in Tuesday’s semi-final. He calmly stated that it was now 2am on Wednesday in Chennai and that he had to be at school at 8.45am to take his 11th-year board exam in commerce before playing China’s world No 2, Ding Liren, that same evening in the two-day final. “Winning the match would be much nicer than passing the exam,” he said.

Later in the day he said: “It went decently, I guess I will pass.” But the final against Ding proved much harder. Their rapid match ended level at 4-4 before Ding won the blitz tie-break 1.5-0.5.

Ding, whose chess activity since 2020 has been much reduced by the pandemic, achieved his own milestone in the semi-final when he defeated Magnus Carlsen 2.5-1.5, winning their fourth game after three draws. Previously Ding had lost four online Tour semi-finals and a third place playoff to the world No 1.

Tuesday’s game four was decided late on when Carlsen missed the chance for an unusual fortress draw by 39…g3! blocking the position instead of 39…Kg7? 40 Bh4! followed by Bg5 when Ding’s attack broke through.

Ding’s approach to the final against Praggnanandhaa was to defuse his young opponent’s attacking ambitions. “My strategy was to avoid complications and go for simple positions,” he