Mumbai: Ace chess player Viswanathan Anand heaped praise on young Indian prodigy R Praggnanandhaa, in Mumbai, on Tuesday.
Earlier this year, Praggnanandhaa, who hails from Chennai, became the youngest International Master (IM) at the age of 10, after performing well in Cannes, Moscow, and Bhubaneshwar, earlier this year.
Anand who was in Mumbai for the promotion of the IIFL Chess tournament here, believes that becoming an IM at such a young age will help the Praggnanandhaa, who is now 11-years-old.
“He’s attracted worldwide attention. He’s a very famous Indian chess player right now. Somehow he’s captured everyone’s imagination,” said Anand, speaking to the media.
“But there’s still a lot of time for him to progress, and I hope that he’ll do it steadily. He’s showing very good signs of progress, but it’s a long hard road (ahead),” he continued.
“As you know, the problem for youngsters is finding the right tournaments to play and getting a chance to compete.”
Anand also believes that becoming an IM at such a young age will help open a lot of doors for Praggnanandhaa.
“And for him, if this opens a lot of doors, it’s nice. Which is why I think the junior tournament (IIFL) is a very healthy initiative,” said Anand.
“They need a chance to compete exactly at that age, and to interact with top players. I don’t think it should be a problem for him, and I think he will take the chance to play and do well.”
When asked about his performance in 2016, Anand decided to look at the positive side of things. The 47-year-old managed to win only one tournament last year – Leon Masters Rapid Tournament.
He also said that there is more of a chance for things to go wrong in a rapid chess tournament.
“It was a slightly disappointing end of the year for me, but it’s a very tough tournament. Normally you may have one bad day,” said Anand. “But here you could have nine bad days or 11 bad days, depending on the number of rounds.
“I won’t think about it too much. Mostly the year has been positive, but I will certainly look at the mistakes that I’ve made and try to work on them,” he said.
