Top-ranked Magnus Carlsen of Norway has won the Chess World Cup by comprehensively defeating India’s Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.
The 32-year-old Norwegian, who has been ranked the world’s top player for over 12 years, defeated the 18-year-old Indian on Thursday in a final played over three days in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The final went into a two-game tie-break after the first two rounds failed to produce a winner. Carlsen won the first game, and the second game ended in a draw, handing a win to the grandmaster.
The Scandinavian had met his younger nemesis on a number of occasions and was notably beaten by him at the Airthings Masters rapid chess tournament in February 2022.
The then-16-year-old was the youngest player ever to defeat Carlsen until October when another Indian teenager, Donnarumma Gukesh, broke the record, also at 16 but nearly two months younger than Praggnanandhaa at his victory.
In his run to the final, Praggnanandhaa beat world number two Fabiano Caruana of the United States in the semifinal as well as world number three Hikaru Nakamura, also of the US, in an earlier round.
Praggnanandhaa became the youngest international master in history at age 10 in 2016 and was earmarked by local chess officials as a future champion.
Growing up with his sister Vaishali Rameshbabu, a local chess champion, Praggnanandhaa began playing the game at the age of three with encouragement from his parents.
He had earned the title of International Chess Federation master by age seven, the third highest title a chess player can achieve after the grandmaster and international master titles.
