Praggnanandhaa beats World No.2; enters world top 10 rankings

Stavanger/Norway: Fighting a fierce battle, Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa ends up victorious against world number two Fabiano Caruana of the United States to enter the top 10 of world rankings after the end of the fifth round of the Norway Chess tournament here, PTI reported.

In the women's event, Praggnanandhaa's sister R Vaishali is continuing her dream run, defeating China's Tingkie Lei in the Armageddon chess, keeping her lead at 10 points.

Praggnanandhaa played out a Carlsenque endgame to grind down Caruana. The Catalan opening by the Indian saw the exchange of pieces at regular intervals, and the players reached a rook and knight endgame before the 40th move itself.

The same side pawns, even with an extra pawn, are known to be a theoretical draw, but Praggnanandhaa kept playing till Caruana collapsed on his 66th move and blundered his last pawn. It took 11 more moves for Praggnanandhaa to convert into a full point.

Asian News International reported that Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani congratulated Praggnanandhaa for his stunning victory world number one Magnus Carlsen as well as number two Fabiano Caruana.

In women's, Anna Muzychuk is the closest to the Vaishali and is a full point behind after defeating Pia Cramling of Sweden in the Classical game.

Vaishali played out a draw under the Classical time control with Tingjie Lei and, in another drawn endgame of the day, outplayed the Chinese in the ensuing knight and pawns endgame.

This was Vaishali's second win under Armageddon in the tournament, along with two wins in Classical. Her lone loss came against Wenjun Ju in the first round.