Defying a ‘Queen’s Gambit’ by cornering the King – Indian prince Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa shocked and awed the land by forcing five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen to concede.
The prodigy turned the youngest Indian, after Vishwanathan Anand and P. Harikrishna, to defeat the Norwegian in Airthings Masters speedy chess match on February 21 and now once more has India’s consideration and the world at his toes.
The 16-year-old Grand Master has regaled the story of his victory in a number of interviews since however the first individual he advised was his coach RB Ramesh and waking up his father in the subsequent room at 3 AM in the morning.
After Praggnanandhaa beat the American GM Levon Aronian earlier in the day, RB Ramesh went to sleep forward the final match – which started at 10:30 in the night time in opposition to Magnus Carlsen. He needed to get up early the subsequent day as he had lessons to show in the morning.
That had been the routine for the pair, one thing RB Ramesh had labored out with Praggnanandhaa.
“We decided is like 10 days before the tournament, he (Praggnanandhaa) started sleeping at 4 AM in the morning. He started his preparation at 10:30 PM in the night when the tournament would start, so that his mind and body adapted and was preparing till 3 AM in the morning. He was doing it for 10 days. And he was going to bed at four and waking at 1 o’clock in the afternoon,” coach RB Ramesh, who has been teaching Praggnanandhaa since he was seven years previous, advised News18.com in an unique interplay.
“For the Magnus game, every day in the afternoon, we devise a strategy, like we’ll be playing four games every day. So for all the four games, what should be our approach, what openings we should choose, and what is the opponent’s strength and weakness,” he added.
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Many consultants and commentators of the sport have reasoned why and the way Magnus’ seemingly small mistake turned the sport in favour of Praggnanandhaa. A ‘loss of judgement’ many dubbed it. RB Ramesh although just isn’t having any of it.
“If both plays perfectly in all of sports, everything should end in a draw. Right? So one side has to make the mistake otherwise, even someone like Magnus cannot defeat any player,” he argued.
“Usually it is very difficult to get a decent position against Magnus with the black boxes. But in this game, it did not happen because it was well prepared. And he even got a better position very early in the opening because Magnus did not have probably such a good progression as Pragg (Praggnanandhaa) did.
“Magnus made another mistake, but these mistakes are induced by the good play from the other side. If we play without mistake, the other side is automatically under pressure. That’s what happened in the game. When he (Praggnanandhaa) could have played defensively, he chose not to and took some risk by sacrificing a pawn. He started activating his pieces on taking spaces near the Magnus and that kind of strategy put pressure on him and that induce the mistake which he capitalised on so perfectly,” RB Ramesh mentioned.
Coach Ramesh although brushed apart notions that the world champion underestimated the 16-year-old, stating that perhaps he had guard down. Especially successful the earlier three video games in the day however added that assumptions shouldn’t be made in hindsight.
When requested about what influence Praggnanandhaa’s achievement can imply for the sport, particularly in India, coach RB Ramesh mentioned: “Players in Europe and US are very much worried or afraid to play against Indian youngsters because our young players are like hunting tigers. They are smashing all these players’ reputation badly.”
“It is very important because many young children they will be looking up to players like Praggnanandhaa and when they see like a young player can defeat the world champion, they will want to do the same themselves or something similar. So it will encourage 1000s of young children to take up the game. It is capturing the imagination of wider audience (with more media attention), which is always good for the game. And hopefully we will get more private sponsors to support just in a big way that has to come,” he added.
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RB Ramesh prioritises the significance of good teaching and that’s how India, he believes, can ascend to the prime in the sport.
“There are huge number of young children who comes into the game with similar expectations now, because of in the last four days or five, six days. I’ve been getting hundreds of inquiries on a daily basis like they all want to learn from me some four or five year old children now I cannot work with so many students so it’s very important. In India we cultivate an army of good coaches who can handle the increased interest in the game,” he mentioned.
“In cooperation with HobSpace, we also try to create a syllabus which these coaches can use and help these new players coming into the game. This is also very important. Currently, we don’t have as many good coaches in India. That is one drawback I should say.”
RB Ramesh, who’s a GM in his personal proper and in addition popularly often known as the Super Coach, has been the coach of the Indian males’s crew for nearly a decade. He, alongside together with his spouse WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy are the official curriculum masters for HobSpace, a world platform for teenagers to study and play chess.
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