Indian Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa will once again take on the world’s best players at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz chess tournament starting here. Despite a slight dip in performance in recent tournaments, Praggnanandhaa would be looking to secure a podium finish in the final table of the Grand Chess Tour, which will also fetch him bonus cash prize money.
Praggnanandhaa, who is third in the overall tour results so far, has two consecutive tournaments to improve his position. Immediately after the Rapid and Blitz tournament, he will take part in the Sinquefield Cup where he will also compete with compatriot and World Championship challenger D Gukesh. Last year’s tour winner Fabiano Caruana of the United States is at the top with 22.25 points after two consecutive victories in Bucharest, Romania and Zagreb, Croatia.
Alireza Firouzja of France is second with 17.58 points while Praggnanandhaa is third with 16.25 points. Gukesh is also not far behind him. He is fourth with 14.25 points but the problem for him is that he has only one competition left while the top three players will play in all four competitions.
The Rapid and Blitz tournament here will see the return of players like Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi, France’s Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Uzbekistan’s Nodirbek Abdusattarov and USA’s Wesley So. The other three participants are wild card holders, including the American trio of Levon Aronian, Hikaru Nakamura and Lennier Dominguez.
In this tournament, there will be nine rapid and 18 blitz games between these 10 players. In rapid, two points are awarded for each win and one point for a draw. In blitz, one point will be awarded for a win and half a point for each draw.
