New Delhi, 28 August 2026: Young Grandmaster of India R. Praggyananda made a brilliant comeback and won the prestigious Grand Chess Tour (GCT) title by defeating American veteran Fabiano Caruana. Praggnanand has become the first Indian player in the world to win this trophy. In the thrilling final match played at the St. Louis Chess Club, Praggnanandha made an amazing comeback after trailing and ultimately won his first GCT title by defeating Caruana 15-13. With this historic victory, he got a huge prize money of 2 lakh US dollars as the winner.
The 21-year-old Chennai player, who has trained under the guidance of five-time world champion Vishwanathan Anand, started the day trailing against Caruana by six points. However, he performed brilliantly, winning both the Rapid matches and taking a two-point lead (in Rapid, there are four points for each win). After that, in four blitz matches, both the players won one game each, while two matches were drawn. Praggnanande maintained his two-digit lead by winning the third blitz game. In the last game, only a 'draw' was enough for Praggnanand to win the title and he played carefully, got the draw and registered a historic victory.
With this brilliant victory, apart from Praggnanand, the place for next year's Grand Chess Tour has also been confirmed for Caruana and America's Wesley So. It is noteworthy that, earlier this year, Praggnanande had also created history by winning the Norway Chess title, in which he defeated world number-1 Magnus Carlsen twice.