Praggnanandhaa Goes From Last to First on Day Two of Clutch Chess

Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu started day two of the Clutch Chess: Champions Showdown in last place. He ended it in front, with four wins, one draw and one loss in Saint Louis.

With wins worth two points on Wednesday, that run took him from 2 to 11 points. Fabiano Caruana and Javokhir Sindarov share second on 8½, and day-one leader Hikaru Nakamura is last on 8.

A hat trick after a setback

Pragg opened the day by beating Sindarov in a complicated heavy-piece ending, where Sindarov missed the only way to hold. Sindarov hit back in the second game with Black, from a King’s Indian Defence.

“I love to play the King’s Indian,” Sindarov said on the broadcast. “Of course, from the opening, I will always get a very bad position, but then I’m very good in tricks, I will say!”

Pragg then won three games in a row. Against Nakamura he turned a pawn-down endgame into a win, a game Nakamura summed up bluntly: “I was completely winning and lost my mind.”

The second game against Nakamura was a cleaner win, outplaying him in the endgame after a Rossolimo Sicilian. Pragg then beat Caruana, who collapsed in a time scramble, before drawing their second game to end the day.

He was modest about it. “I think today was also bad, but I was more lucky today,” he said. “There were some bad games, there were some okay games, but okay, whatever, if I’m winning then it’s fine.”

Caruana steadier, Sindarov frustrated

Caruana scored 50 percent on the day, one point more than Sindarov. His one win, against Sindarov, was the most one-sided game of the event so far, built on a strong outpost on d5.

Sindarov took that loss hard, calling it, with a smile, “the worst game of my life.” He is the challenger for the World Championship match against Gukesh Dommaraju, which starts on 24 November.

Nakamura drew four games and lost both to Pragg. He still said he was satisfied with his level of play, the results aside.

What day three can change

On Thursday a win is worth three points and a draw one, so a 2.5-point lead is less than one win. Caruana put it simply: “It’s hard to imagine someone really being so far ahead that the three points on the last day don’t give a chance at least for someone else to catch up.”

The money is moving too. Pragg has collected $9,000 in win bonuses so far. The draws have added $19,000 to the Champion’s Jackpot, which goes to the overall winner on top of the $125,000 first prize.

Day three starts at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday, 29 October. Our day-one report covers how Nakamura took the early lead.