Why it is silly to mock Magnus Carlsen over his loss against R Praggnanandhaa at the FTX Crypto Cup 2022

Indian chess prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa made headlines again by beating World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen in the FTX Crypto Cup 2022. Although it’s a remarkable achievement for the 17-year-old, and Praggnanandhaa deserves every bit of praise he is receiving, some people found this to be a good opportunity to mock the World Champion.

They decided to remark how arrogant it was of him to not play another World Championship match and that Praggnanandhaa taught him a lesson. These people need to know some facts.

Although R Praggnanandhaa won the match against Magnus Carlsen in the tournament, it was the World Champion himself who won the FTX Crypto Cup 2022. Praggnanandhaa finished second — no mean feat in a tournament where top guns such as Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Levon Aronian, and many others competed.

The tournament was in Rapid time format. In a Rapid game, each player will have 15 minutes in total with a 10 second time increment after each move. This means most matches finish in about 45-60 minutes, unlike the Classical game format (in which the World Chess Championship is fought), where a game can easily last six to seven hours.

Due to the shorter time control, players are prone to make more errors, and there is unpredictability in the results associated with this format. Basically, it is the T20 equivalent of chess, while Classical games are akin to Test matches.

This unpredictability is evident from the fact that despite being the World Champion five times in a row since 2013, Magnus Carlsen was the Rapid Chess Champion only three times (no one has done it more times than him though).

We had different Rapid champions in the last decade — the youngest being Uzbekistan’s 16-year-old prodigy Nodirbek Abdusattorov (in 2021) and the oldest being the legendary Vishwanathan Anand (in 2017).

Don’t get us wrong! We are not trying to belittle Praggnanandhaa's achievement. Beating Magnus Carlsen in a game of chess is no walk in the park, even if it is in the shorter time format, as Carlsen is the best we have come close to a human chess machine.

However, it is important to know that Praggnanandhaa still has a long, long way to go to get anywhere near the throne of the World Champion. He is still a whopping 200 rating points behind the Norwegian in the Classical format and is currently ranked 89, while Carlsen has been the number one player for over a decade.

Praggnanandhaa will surely close the gap in the coming years, but one has to acknowledge the uphill task ahead of him.

Magnus Carlsen's decision to not defend his title

Now, why did Carlsen refuse to defend the title? It is not because of his 'arrogance' as some people claim. The World Chess Championship is not the same as other chess tournaments. Months of preparation and toil go into it, and it takes a heavy toll on the mind and body of both the challenger and defender.

The only thing that motivates the players to fight and sweat for the title is the glory that comes along with it — the glory of being recognized as the best chess player in the world. But Carlsen has been the best player on the planet since 2010 and is undoubtedly one of the top three chess players of all-time, along with Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer.

He has beaten all his contemporaries a fair number of times and is a good 55 points ahead of the second-ranked player in the world (that’s a huge difference). His toughest challenge probably came four years back, when Fabiano Caruana (USA) held him to 12 consecutive draws in the World Chess Championship 2018. But even Fabi was outplayed in the tiebreakers of the tournament by Carlsen.

Magnus Carlsen defended his title against Caruana in 2018

So when Magnus said he doesn’t have the motivation to play another World Championship match, that’s not a sign of his arrogance. It just means he doesn’t want to take that arduous road again when there is nothing to gain or prove.

Still, he clarified that he would defend his title if the challenger was someone from the younger generation (and that includes Praggnanandhaa), preferably the teenager Alireza Firouzja (who is touted to be the next big thing in chess). But that didn’t happen because Firouzja failed to win the Candidates tournament (the winner of the Candidates will be the title-challenger).

Not only that, it was Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi who won the Candidates, someone Magnus Carlsen had annihilated in last year’s Championship match. So, it is no wonder that Carlsen didn’t want to invest his time and energy in fighting that battle once again, whose result, be it a win or loss, is insignificant to him personally. One has to respect that decision.

Except for the time he spends playing football, Magnus Carlsen breathes chess. He has utmost respect for the game and its players and that must be evident to anyone who follows chess closely.

He inspires youngsters and appreciates their game at every possible opportunity. Right after he made an uncharacteristic blunder and was forced to resign in the game against Praggnanandhaa, he shook hands with the Indian prodigy, sporting an effervescent smile on his face. (Kasparov would have probably punched the computer in rage and disappointment of getting beaten by a 17-year-old.)

Yes, R Praggnanandhaa indeed taught Magnus Carlsen a lesson, but it is a lesson that he already knew — that the Indian youngsters are storming the chess world like never before. Anand was India’s first Grandmaster, and now we have 75 of them (27 of them are unsurprisingly from Anand’s own State Tamil Nadu).

The whole chess world, including Carlsen, has nothing but exciting things to say about this advancement.

So, let’s not be silly enough to mock Magnus Carlsen for getting beaten by a teenager in a Rapid game. Indian chess players are now getting serious recognition from all parts of the world. We shouldn’t be stupid enough to spoil it with our hyper-nationalism and ignorance.