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Time to jinx young Pragga

Standings after 8/11 rounds



Big game tomorrow with Pragga with black playing the leader Tari Aryan. A win tomorrow and he should be the favourite to win this.


Now, the important numbers,

Pragga needs another half a point in the next 3 rounds to achieve his first GM norm. Almost done. That would leave him with 4 more tournaments to win 2 more norms if he is to beat Karjakin's record of the youngest GM ever.

He likely needs at least a draw tomorrow and another 1.5/2 in the remaining rounds to have a chance at winning outright. A win here will also give him a GM title (no need for 3 norms).

Why is he called Pragga? Should it not be Praggna?

Pragga, Praggu, Praggna, the kid has many names.

Drew with black against Aryan but bad loss for Karthikeyan on board 2 against Alekseenko means Pragga down to #3 now.

GM norm secured but needs a win with white against Lomasov tomorrow and hope that the 2 co-leaders don't win. He still has the best TB2 score in case of tiebreaks unless it is a tie with Aryan and Alekseenko.

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:48 pm Pragga, Praggu, Praggna, the kid has many names.

I rather have many names than having the name of the #4. Imagine my pals/gf/teacher calling my name aloud.

lol. I think loma in Russian means scrap. So, it is scraps of <lastname>. Whoever named him had a sense of humor. Or was very literal and factual and uncreative. "Can't figure out what to name this crying baby." "Well, what is he made of? Name him that." "Sure." Or so goes the legend.

Big opportunity missed by Pragga as he accepted a draw in a very strong winning position under time pressure

A win would have taken him to #1 with one round to play

Now he needs to win with black tomorrow against Svane Rasmus (2587) and hope that Alekseenko doesn't win and the sole leader Tari Aryan doesn't win either.

Alekseenko today got beaten by Arvind Chithambaram who joined Pragga in the 6-way tie for 2nd. Given tiebreak rules, there is no permutation which gives him a win.

Pragga needs to work on his time control. He has been the best player in this tournament but has accepted 2 draws in winning positions (against Alekseenko and Lomanov).

No last round win and no medal for Pragga as he finishes 4th; he had the highest tiebreak score so converting one of those 2 draws would have given him the title.

Aravindh and Karthikeyan ended the tournament strongly to finish 3rd and 7th respectively so overall very good returns for us.