Chess: Teenagers top in Reykjavik while English hopes fade at the finish

India’s Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, 16, widely forecast as a future world class grandmaster, added to his growing reputation on Tuesday when he won the €5,000 first prize at the Reykjavik Open with an unbeaten 7.5/9. Earlier in his career, the Chennai teenager was the youngest ever international master, among the youngest ever GMs and the second youngest to reach a 2600 Fide rating.

He was singled out in this column more than five years ago for an 18-move brilliancy at age 11 in the Isle of Man which went global and was compared to Bobby Fischer’s Game of the Century against Donald Byrne.

Most recently, Praggnandhaa’s online win against Magnus Carlsen in the Airthings Masters made him the youngest to beat the No 1 in a serious game. The quality of his play at Reykjavik also impressed, notably with a brilliancy in the penultimate round.

Yet, despite it all, Praggnanandhaa’s Reykjavik victory came courtesy of a final-round gift from another Indian prodigy. Dommaraju Gukesh, 15, was two pawns up near the move 40 time control, but two catastrophic blunders gave away first the win, then the draw, before allowing a decisive checkmate in one threat.

Two other teenagers made their mark in Iceland, The youngest ever GM, Abhimanyu Mishra, 13, suffered criticism when he won the title via closed all-play-alls in Budapest which some thought were too easy. Mishra has answered his detractors by continuing to advance. His tied second in Iceland pushed his Fide rating up to 2535, giving him still a full year to break the record for the youngest ever 2600 player, currently held by John Burke of the US at 14 years and two months.

Hans Niemann is 18, old by prodigy standards, yet the Californian streamer, Harvard reject, and 2021 US junior